


Of My Personal Lexicon

by Ewebie



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: BAMF John, I can't believe it's taken me this long to put this up, John stop flirting with poor Sherlock! You're damaging his writer's flow!, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Sort of? - Freeform, Tumblr Prompt, Writer AU, Writer Sherlock
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-20
Updated: 2016-11-22
Packaged: 2018-06-09 11:51:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 34,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6905077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ewebie/pseuds/Ewebie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on an AU prompt I have long since misplaced... something like: <b>I’m a writer and your my character and wtf how the heck did you just literally climb out of my first draft?</b></p><p>
  <i>Sherlock grumbled as his fingers hovered over the keyboard. There had to be a better word than ‘engorged.’ Not only better, but given the fact that he’d used it seven times in the past three pages, alternative. Substitute. Interchangeable. Equivalent. Replacement. UGH! He snarled and rifled his fingers through his hair, shaking his curls loose and, hopefully, the cobwebs. He hated deadlines.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [areichenbachfall](https://archiveofourown.org/users/areichenbachfall/gifts).



> For the record... I don't always treat my betas well. I promised Reichy a quick tumblr short based on a prompt from a long list of options (prompt of her choice) as compensation for all the sobbing on the floor that was associated with beta-ing _All These Things_. That was... Well... Ages ago. But the small prompt took on a mad life of its own and is significantly longer than a tumblr short. It's also rather well suited to a few chapters. I'm thinking maybe 5? This might get well out of hand.
> 
> Other things to know... I tend to put TWs in the notes at the beginning of each chapter. This will earn both the rating and the warning, but if there's anything specific, I try to put it at the beginning of the chapter.

Sherlock grumbled as his fingers hovered over the keyboard. There had to be a better word than ‘engorged.’ Not only better, but given the fact that he’d used it seven times in the past three pages, alternative. Substitute. Interchangeable. Equivalent. Replacement. UGH! He snarled and rifled his fingers through his hair, shaking his curls loose and, hopefully, the cobwebs. He hated deadlines.

_Her hand wrapped around his cock as it swelled…_

He huffed out a long sigh. Swelled? Swelled. Sherlock Holmes, you are not using the word ‘swelled’ in one of your novels. Tumefy? Plump? Bloat? Yes, clearly ‘bloat’ was a prime selection. It had been days since he’d made anything resembling progress on this latest piece, and he was starting to dread his meeting tomorrow.

“Everything ok, Sherlock?”

He quickly masked his irritation behind an awkward smile as he glanced up. It wouldn’t do to upset the person that supplied his coffee. “Molly,” he gave a polite nod. “I didn’t realize this café had adopted table service.”

Molly blushed and became interested in the pocket of her apron. “Oh it hasn’t. I’m just off in five and Jeanette can be a little touchy about patrons without purchases.”

Sherlock sighed. If Jeanette was coming on shift, he was better off going. Not like he was being productive anyway. “It’s fine. I’m just leaving.” He snapped the laptop shut and reached for his satchel.

Molly gave a small nod, “You sure you’re ok?”

He muttered under his breath as he closed the straps. “Writers block,” he said finally. It had begun the moment his brother had invaded his sitting room unannounced, poking his nose into Sherlock’s life like he belonged there.

“Oh,” Molly flushed brightly.

It was a flash of a wince, but Sherlock couldn’t hide it. Molly knew he was a writer, and unfortunately, knew what it was he wrote. He’d gone to extreme measures to protect his identity, using a pseudonym, no pictures on the dust jackets, no direct contact with fans, all post to his publishers. His interactions with fans _never_ went well. He was, in a word, rude. Mostly because he found his fans to be rude, but perhaps, in part, because the reality of Sherlock Holmes, or Ignatius Bell as he was better known, was a disappointment. Romance novelists were supposed to be Byron-esque heroes, not standoffish and socially awkward. Thankfully, in spite of her rather eager nature, Molly had managed to keep it secret enough and his frequent afternoons writing in the back of the bookstore café went unmolested. He cleared his throat. “Right.” He stood and shouldered the bag, pressing his lips together in an uncomfortable non-smile. “Afternoon.”

“Bye,” Molly called to his back as he pushed out the door.

The day was bright and warm, and he was glad his sleeves were already rolled as he side-stepped the crowds on the pavement. He deeply disliked the invasion of his personal space as he was forced to wait at the pedestrian crossing. Disliked. Abhored. Deplored. Eschewed. Loathed. Resented. Yes, resented, his mind settled on. He sighed, closed his eyes and tilted his face towards the sun as he buried his hands in his pockets and waited for the lights to change. He’d been inside too long if the exhaust-filled London air felt fresh.

A large body collided with his shoulder, knocking him off balance, and he let out a squawk of displeasure as his weight pitched forward, gravity dragging him toward the street. His brain did the math as his hands failed to tear free of his trouser pockets. He was going to land face first on the asphalt. How humiliating. His feet reflexively scrambled on the textured incline, the leather soles of his shoes no match for the momentum behind his slide. He never made it to the ground. A firm hand splayed over his sternum as another wrapped warmly around his arm, stabilizing him almost effortlessly. His eyes flew open to the gust of sooty air. The bike messenger passed only inches from his nose, and he forced his weight back into his heels.

“Steady on,” came a voice from his side.

Sherlock snapped himself upright, the near-miss of the bike merging with the shock of a stranger touching him upsetting, no alarming, annoying, perturbing, provoking him into a fit of pique. “Excuse me,” he hissed, straightening his button-down shirt with a quick jerk and rounding on the randomer.

“Alright?” the stranger asked, his brows up in concern, his head canted just off to the side, his hands held up in a cautioning manner.

Sherlock’s breath caught in his throat. _The sunlight caught in the sandy hair, streaking it with gold and masking the odd gray..._ He blinked. _His casual posture belied the firm body, the comfortable musculature that could move with speed and strength…_ He swallowed and blinked again. _For beneath the ordinary façade, James Wilson masked depths of capacity, capability, and competence._

Sherlock continued to blink as a wry half-smile tugged at the corner of the stranger’s mouth. “That was a close call, I’ll give you that. But I’ve never seen anyone rendered speechless by a near-bike miss.” The lights changed and a stream of pedestrians pushed past them. “Are you... Are you alright?”

Sherlock cleared his throat and tried to stop his mind from rifling through hundreds of pages of text. “I…” He nodded slowly. “I’m fine.”

The man huffed out a laugh, “No you’re not.” The palm returned to his upper arm, wrapping calloused, tanned fingers around the aubergine material. The gentle tug nearly had Sherlock stumbling again. “You’ve just had a bit of a fright. Sit for a second.” He wasn’t manhandled. More like directed. Led. Escorted. Maneuvered. Marshaled. Guided to the bench a few feet away, and the stranger stooped with one hand on his shoulder to bring them eye-level. “Better?”

Sherlock furrowed his brow. The touching was distracting, and in any other circumstance, he’d be contentious about it. But it wasn’t every day that an author came face to face with his preeminent protagonist. He cleared his throat again. “Yes, quite.” He ran a hand through his dark curls, pushing them back off his forehead in irritation. “That was rather a bit closer to having my face smashed than I prefer.”

A warm chuckle seemed to burst out of the stranger, and Sherlock raised his eyes to find a broad smile on the man’s face. “That would have been an absolute shame.” Sherlock blinked, his voice abandoning him again. He felt a flush creep across his cheeks as mischief danced through the dark blue eyes in front of him. “It looks quite lovely in one piece.”

Sherlock’s face convulsed in too many contrasting emotions at once. And he finally managed a weak chuckle. “Yes, I rather suppose one piece is better than many.”

The man gave his shoulder a squeeze and straightened to his full height, glancing toward the intersection again. Sherlock noted that he couldn’t be much over five and a half feet, and yet, he didn’t look even remotely short. He looked like a giant. And Sherlock had to squint as the stranger’s profile eclipsed the sun and cast a blinding halo around his frame. “I wholeheartedly agree. Now,” he extended a hand. “Will you be alright crossing that street on your own?” Sherlock blinked at the hand, the tanned skin, the cuff of the blue, black and white checked shirt, the hint of a scar in the web space between the thumb and forefinger, and couldn’t quite fathom what it was there for. “Or,” the stranger’s mouth quirked, “Are you accident prone enough to need an escort?”

Oh. Sherlock took the hand and was pulled effortlessly to his feet. He cleared his throat, mentally cursing his tongue for being so slow. “I should be fine.” He tried to pull his shoulders back and adopt his usually impeccable posture.

“Right, brilliant.” The man half-smiled, his tongue just barely escaping beneath the cage of his upper teeth. “Fine,” he said lowly with a wink. “Catch you again later.”

Sherlock felt the blush spread to the tips of his ears as the stranger turned and headed down the street. Stunned, his brain supplied. Shocked. Astounded. Stupefied. Astonished. Bewildered… Dismayed that he was leaving. Sherlock shook himself, blinked as the figure disappeared into the crowd, vanished easily on the crowded London pavement, and then turned to make his way home. His fingers were itching and he felt the urgent need to write flooding his perception. James Wilson was real. Who knew?

 

~o~

 

Greg Lestrade tapped the pen against his lower lip as he continued to skim the pages of text. “It’s not bad,” he mumbled almost absently, flicking to the last page. He caught the pen cap in his teeth and winced as he bit on it absently. “I thought you said you were behind.”

Sherlock huffed impatiently. “I never said that.”

“No,” Lestrade set the pages down and flashed a toothy grin. “You went on a fifteen minute tirade regarding the imposition of deadlines limiting the freedom of expression, and the last time you did that, you were a month behind schedule.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes irritably.

“What changed?”

“I felt inspired.”

“Inspired?” Greg cocked a brow.

“Childish,” Sherlock scowled.

Lestrade’s smile softened as he spread the pages out across the desk. “It’s good, Sherlock.”

“Good?” Sherlock was unimpressed. “Just ‘good’?”

Lestrade frowned and scratched at the back of his neck. “Look,” he fanned his hands out over the writing. “I know you’re on contract for three of these Wilson books. And after the second one, I thought it was probably done. I’m impressed with what you’ve managed so far with this third book.”

“Impressed,” Sherlock scoffed. “That’s barely shy of rude. You think I should move on to something else.”

“I do, yeah,” Greg said flatly. “You have a knack for people. The way you describe them is vivid as hell.”

“I’ve told you before. It’s not about just seeing people, it’s about observing them.”

“Whatever,” Greg silenced him with a wave. “You’re a better writer than romantic smut. And you keep skirting it with these. But…”

“But I’m on contract,” Sherlock drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair.

“Yeah.” Greg leaned forward on his desk and folded his hands together. “I’m going to hang on to these for the moment. Leave it out of copy for the time being. Turning them in to me is meeting the requirement. It’s just that…”

“That what?” Sherlock pressed. It wasn’t that he wanted the copy editors to hack at those chapters. Donovan and Anderson were reasonable when it came to grammar and syntax, but their overall outlook on Sherlock’s work was… Scornful? Disdainful. Hypercritical? Contemptuous. Insolent. Yes, insolent. His impression vacillated between haughty aversion to the genre and common jealousy. It was pitiful. Loathsome. Useless. Contemptible. And it was a waste of everyone’s time. Literary license was something beyond their grasp.

Lestrade considered the pages on his desk for a moment. “There’s something missing, Sherlock,” he said finally. “It’s better. It really is. It’ll be publishable; I’ve no doubt. But it feels like there’s something just off. Like you’re hitting the notes a little flat.”

Sherlock cocked a brow. “You think I need my instrument tuned?”

“Only you could make my criticism seem pornographic,” Greg muttered wryly. “But yes. It’s just the tiniest bit out of focus. See what happens with the next few chapters. See if it doesn’t work itself out. We can do as many re-writes as you want.”

Sherlock hummed out an indistinct response.

“Whatever it is that sparked this latest bit of productivity, hang on to that.” Lestrade collected the papers and stacked them carefully. “And whatever seems to be out of tune… Well…”

Sherlock smirked. “Get the pipes checked.”

“Sherlock.”

“Call the repairman?”

“Sherlock, stop.”

Sherlock leaned forward over the desk and dropped his voice. “Order a pizza, extra sausage.”

Greg just groaned and waved him out of the office with the flap of his hand.

“I will figure it out, Lestrade,” Sherlock purred.

Greg snorted. “You and what army? I’ve known you a decade, Sherlock Holmes, and your writing has yet to make me blush.”

Sherlock grinned and slid his satchel onto his shoulder. “It’s a challenge I’m happy to accept.”

“It’s not been offered as a challenge, Sherlock,” Greg called at Sherlock’s back as he headed out the door of the office. “Sherlock!”

“Toodles!” Sherlock twiddled his fingers over his shoulder as he headed for the elevators. If nothing else, winding up his publishing editor was the highlight of his week. He made his way partway across town to his favorite writing haunt, humming to himself on the way there, new ideas flashing through his head as the story unfurled in his mind. It took time to get it into text. To pick the words. Sherlock was nothing if not particular with his personal lexicon. Precise. Distinct. Selective. Finicky. Peculiar. Fastidious? Discriminating. Yes. Discriminating.

He settled at the small corner table, tucked against the wall and window, well hidden and discreet, and most likely to be left to his own devices. He pulled out his laptop and booted up his writing program. Molly wouldn’t be in for at least a half an hour, and with Sarah at the machine, Sherlock couldn’t bring himself to order a coffee. He didn’t feel like explaining his tastes to Sarah. Again. And Molly would see to it that his order was filled properly. When she finally got here. In the mean time, he had some idea where the story was headed and he wanted to get a bit of the outline down before it became more nebulous in his mind.

It was a good flow. His fingers and the images in his brain seemed in sync and the words were spilling across his screen. He was in the zone. He had his blinders on. He had shut out the flicker of pedestrians passing on the street, the loud mechanical whine of the grinder, the chatter from the counter, the shuffle of customers as they milled around the bookshelves. And he poured the lines out, prose composing in sentence after sentence. So when a take-away cup thumped down on the table and a body tucked into the chair opposite him, Sherlock felt ripped out of his work and looked up with a tantrum of words on the tip of his tongue.

He wasn’t ready for the brilliant smile, or _eyes the color of the sea on a clear day, indigo that changed in a flash to a bright cobalt or ebbed into a navy that would leave Yves Saint Laurent bitter…_ The words died as Sherlock blinked. “Twice in a week, what a lucky coincidence,” the man said with a grin.

A neat little furrow appeared between Sherlock’s brows, “That’s not what I say about coincidence,” he replied flatly.

“Oh? And what do you say about coincidence?”

“The universe is rarely so lazy.” Sherlock blinked. Why did he say that? Why?

The man’s smile brightened, though how that was possible, Sherlock would never understand. “Then you’re a romantic.”

“What?”

“I didn’t set out to find you, yet here you are.” He couldn’t be sure, but Sherlock thought the man’s smile might have been a bit smug. “If not coincidence, then fate. To wit, I am lucky.”

“Lucky?”

“Well,” he glanced down at the cup, his lips twitching. “I couldn’t be sure you made it across that street safely. Bike messengers everywhere. You might have been mowed down. I could never have seen you again.”

Sherlock frowned. “Are you mocking me?”

“Teasing,” the man corrected with an impish grin.

Sherlock blushed. He could hardly look at that expression without recalling some of the more vivid passages he’d written. “Semantics,” he choked out.

“Oh you are going to be hard work, aren’t you,” the man murmured to no one in particular. “John Watson,” he held out his hand. “I was terribly rude yesterday in not introducing myself.”

Sherlock shook the man’s hand, not missing the firm grip, the warmth, the work roughened areas, the unusual sensation of déjà vu. “Uh… Sherlock,” he said softly. “Sherlock Holmes.”

The corner of John Watson’s mouth twitched slightly. “Holmes,” he repeated. “Why does that sound familiar?” He released Sherlock’s hand and shrugged easily. “No bother. It’s a pleasure, Sherlock, Sherlock Holmes. Can I get you a coffee?”

Sherlock felt his cheeks flare with color again. “I uh… Molly…” he winced. “The barista, when…” he cleared his throat. “Molly will be here shortly. She makes the best coffees. I’d prefer to wait.”

“Ah,” John nodded slowly. “Shame I’ve already gotten mine.”

“How did you find me?” Goddammit! Sherlock tried to contain the blush in his face, but it was quickly racing out towards his ears.

“Find you?” John’s brows went up in an innocent and open expression. “I was merely looking or a decent cup of coffee on my lunch break. May not have been looking, but find I did.” His brows returned to neutral and something mischievous flashed through his eyes. “Two things done right in the same place though, how fortuitous.”

“Done right?” The questions kept falling out of his mouth without consent, and Sherlock nearly bit his tongue in protest.

That expression… Vexing? Impish? Sly? Naughty? He barely suppressed the urge to shake his head. Puckish. “Hot, dark, a little bit sweet, and perhaps the slightest bit nutty.” John took a small sip of his coffee. “Coffee’s not bad either.”

Sherlock made a noise halfway between a gulp and a whine as he felt his entire face turn a bright shade of red. Surreal, that’s what this was. Hypnagogic. Fictive. Preposterous. For a moment, he wondered if he’d actually been clipped by the bike messenger, fallen and hit his head. Yes, he was in some sort of coma. Traumatic brain injury. Hallucination or dream. He was not sitting across from James Wilson. James Wilson was not flirting with him. And Sherlock Holmes was certainly not falling for it. This was… Unacceptable. “Are you… Are you hitting on me?” he struggled to get the question out.

“Depends…” He watched as the tip of Wilson’s… No, Watson’s tongue rolled over his lower lip and the man glanced up from beneath impossibly long, blond lashes. “Is it working?”

It was. Fuck. It was. Sherlock swallowed and straightened his spine. When had he started to lean forward? Unsatisfactory. He wasn’t some blushing teen. “So…” he said a little too breathlessly. “What is it you do, John Watson?”

“You mean when I’m not saving hapless pedestrians from horrifying bike-messenger accidents?” Well, he was persistent, seemed completely unaffected by Sherlock’s containment.

“Or frequenting cafés, yes. For work.” Sherlock gave a tiny nod. Back on safe ground. Back on neutral territory.

“Oh, Sherlock,” John’s voice went low as he leaned halfway across the table. “I could tell you,” one corner of his mouth drew back in a dark impression of amusement. “But then I’d have to kill you.”

“Sherlock, you’re here, oh thank God. Remember when you said you’d sign your…” Molly trailed off as she reached the table, setting a book on the empty space by Sherlock’s right hand, and noticing John sitting there, actually seeing him. Seeing him and recognizing him.

John glanced up, a pleasantly nonchalant smile on his face. “Oh, hello.”

Molly froze, a distinct squeak coming out of her mouth.

John’s brow twitched in amusement and he tilted his head. “You must be Molly.”

Molly’s eyes went wide. She looked back and forth between John and Sherlock, finally looking at Sherlock with alarm. “Is… Sherlock?”

There was no way to explain it. No way at all. Sherlock opened and closed his mouth a few times before sucking in a breath. “Coffee?”

Molly nodded slowly and backed away from the table, shooting John a nervous glance. John watched her go with curiosity. He pursed his lips and turned back to Sherlock. “Why do I feel like I’ve upset that poor girl?”

The left side of Sherlock’s face pinched. “Not you.”

John’s easy smile returned. “What have you done to upset that poor girl, then?”

If Molly was so alarmed, there was no way he was dreaming. Sherlock narrowed his eyes, studying the man sitting opposite him. Really looked. Examined. Considered. “You bear a striking resemblance to someone she knows,” he said finally.

“Oh.” John seemed to brush it off. He nodded purposefully and sucked in his cheeks as he eyed the book. His grin came back and he slid the book across to his side of the table. Sherlock made an abortive motion to stop him, but it was far too late. “And what, pray tell, is this then?” He flipped the book face up and scanned the title. “Espionage and Enchantment,” he murmured. “By Ignatius Bell.” The corner of his mouth twitched and Sherlock flinched as he turned it over to read the back. “Secret Agent James Wilson is back…” he trailed off as his eyes traced the text. One of his brows shot up as a slow smile stretched across his face. Sherlock clenched both his hands in his lap as John looked up with delight. “Now you don’t strike me as someone to spend their time reading a book like this.”

“I… No,” Sherlock shifted. “I…”

“And yet, here it is, sitting on your table, as Molly was about to ask you to… What?” John raised a single brow, his eyes twinkling. He leaned forward, pressing Sherlock’s laptop closed and setting the book atop it. “You wrote it?”

Sherlock blanched. “I…”

The word was predatory. That was the exact word for the smile. “Sherlock Holmes, you write romance novels for The New Scotland Publishing House.” John stood and bent over the table, tapping the top of the book steadily. “Interesting.”

“In-interesting?” Sherlock stuttered, his breath catching in his throat.

John stopped, his face only an inch from Sherlock’s. He sucked in one of his cheeks, the other half of his mouth pulling back in a smirk as his eyes flit over Sherlock’s face. “Call me. Will you? Sherlock Holmes.”

Then he was gone, out the door, mixed in with the lunch crowd on the street. Sherlock sucked in a few panicked breaths before Molly made her way back to the table, coffee in hand. She set it down next to him as he looked up, blinking absently. “Sherlock. Was that…?”

He started to shake his head, dropping his gaze to his hands. Oh. Oh! He snatched the napkin off the top of the book with a glance. John had… Had left his number on a napkin… So that… So Sherlock could call him.

“Did you just have coffee with James Wilson?” Molly whispered.

“I think I did.”

 

~o~

 

Sherlock stared at his phone for the fifth time. It wasn’t his phone’s fault. It wouldn’t ring on its own. And… And he had John Watson’s number, not the other way around. He let out a whine and flopped backwards onto his couch. He could do this. He would do this. He would… text him. Yes. Text. But what was he supposed to say?

He closed his eyes and tried to conjure an image of John Watson. Sherlock could recall, with vivid detail the way his hair had been artfully disheveled against his brow, the dips and wrinkles and scars of expression that passed across his face, the exact shade of pink the tip of his tongue had appeared in contrast to his lips. But try as he might, Sherlock couldn’t even remember what the man had been wearing. He could easily suit him in outfits previously outlined in various passages, but what he had actually been dressed in? Sherlock grumbled. It wasn’t like him to miss something so basic.

He texted Molly.

_Molly. Rather rude query. What was my companion wearing yesterday? -SH_

Molly clearly wasn’t busy, given her speed of reply.

**You mean, what was James Wilson wearing?**

Sherlock frowned. Yes, that’s exactly what he meant. Molly didn’t wait for his reply.

**It was like a navy shirt with white buttons. And a light jacket. Darker navy? Does that help?**

Sherlock wrinkled his nose. It did help. He thought that was something he’d made up. He was losing his mind.

_Yes, Molly. Thank you. –SH_

**Thanks for the autograph! Will you be in tomorrow?**

_Perhaps –SH_

Sherlock set the phone down on his chest and toyed with the napkin, studying the scrawl, the slant of the letters and numbers. Was he left-handed? Oh lord. He nearly jumped out of his skin when the phone rang, and he scrambled to answer it without rolling off the couch. “Hello?”

“Good evening, brother dear.”

Sherlock felt his face fall into a pout. “Mycroft,” he muttered. “What do you want?”

“Can’t I check in on my younger brother? I’m concerned.”

Concerned? No. He wanted something. “Concerned about what? Certainly not me.”

“Glib, Sherlock. How’s the writing?”

“How’s the diet?”

Mycroft’s disapproval was so loud that Sherlock fancied he could hear the eye roll through the phone. “I just want to be sure, Sherlock. You haven’t come across the persons of interest.”

“I did promise to call in the unlikely event that I randomly stumble across your work in my rather benign existence.” The image of John Watson drifted to the face of Mycroft’s ‘colleague.’ He wasn’t so dim that he didn’t understand the implications. But it was rare enough that Mycroft would come to him.

“Just keep an eye out, Sherlock.”

“Just one? Whatever shall I do with the other?”

“Sherlock.”

“Mycroft.”

“A modicum of caution, if you would.”

Sherlock scoffed. “Caution?”

Mycroft hummed an affirmative. “I’m expected in a meeting shortly.”

“Don’t eat another scone. Your waistcoats won’t fit.” He disconnected the call before Mycroft could respond. Just like his brother to interfere when he was about to… Text… Someone… Sherlock grumbled and fired off a text before he lost the ire-incited nerve.

_John?_

**_Yup._ **

_John Watson?_

**_Yes._ **

Sherlock chewed on his lower lip. He hadn’t expected such a quick reply. He hadn’t expected such a straightforward reply. He… didn’t know what else to say.

_So you really exist?_

**_I certainly hope so. Otherwise you’re having quite the involved delusion._ **

_It isn’t beyond the realm of possibility._

**_I would accept that if I’d been a half second slower and you’d been hit by the bike messenger._ **

Sherlock blanched. How did he know? He hadn’t given his name, had he? No. No he’d deliberately left that off. So how did he know? And why was that alarming? And why was Sherlock panicking?

**_Sherlock? I am real._ **

_How do you know this is Sherlock?_

**_Believe it or not, I am not in the habit of handing out this number all willy-nilly. Perhaps I was hoping. How lucky to be right?_ **

Sherlock blushed.

_I could be some insane stalker._

**_That isn’t beyond the realm of possibility either._ **

**_But I gave you my number. So you’re either a rubbish stalker, or you’re very good at playing coy._ **

_I would be a rubbish stalker._

**_And what would a rubbish stalker be up to at the moment?_ **

_I was working._

**_Ah. Working on anything I’d recognize?_ **

Sherlock’s eyes went wide. What if John Watson had read his books? What if he’d gone and bought them and knew what an awful hack he was?

_I hope not. But what kind of stalker would I be if I didn’t find out what you were doing?_

**_What am I doing?_ **

_Yes. At the moment. Other than texting me._

**_Deeply regretting passing up the opportunity to drop into Tesco yesterday._ **

_Oh?_

**_I barely have the ingredients to make a cup of tea. This is desperate._ **

Sherlock felt the odd juxtaposition of the normal daily activities run into the image of John Watson. He never considered what store James Wilson would shop in. He never really wondered if he’d use the self-checkout lanes or the clerks. Or would he get take-away? Or would he go out for dinners on his own?

_Dinner?_

Oh. OH GOD! His fingers had taken on a mind of their own! Lord help him! There was no way to retract a text message.

**_Starving._ **

Sherlock swallowed. His mind seemed to stall. Shit. Dinner… Shit! His phone rang and he dropped it clumsily. What had he done? He covered his eyes and groaned. His phone chimed with a new text and he fumbled to collect it from the floor.

**_Answer your phone, Sherlock._ **

He gulped and stared at the mobile. When it rang, he managed to keep it clutched in his hand. “H-hello?”

“Sherlock.”

“John,” he whispered. Ok, he clearly wasn’t imagining this.

“So… Dinner?”

“Um. Yes. Yes, dinner.” You, Sherlock Holmes, are a writer. You are articulate and intelligent and witty. And you will answer this man’s questions without sounding like a complete fool.

“What did you have in mind?”

How did that sound so suggestive? It was only suggestive, because his mind had wandered well past dinner and into nightcap territory. “How hungry are you?”

“Well,” The pause settled warm and heavy in Sherlock’s chest. “The lonely, decade old block of cheese is looking more appealing by the moment. So I’d say quite. And I’ll eat just about anything.”

Cuisine, Sherlock told himself. He’s talking about eating any cuisine. “There’s uh… There’s a decent Mexican place I’ve been meaning to try. It’s on the Notting Hill side of Bayswater. Very casual.”

“Hm, I could try that. I like spicy. An hour sound alright? Any longer and I may succumb to the temptations of moldy cheese.”

Sherlock chuckled. “Can’t have that. I’ll text you the address.”

“Sounds good. And Sherlock,” John caught him before he could disconnect the phone.

“Yes?”

His voice dropped an octave. “I am starving.”

Sherlock felt a shudder run down his spine as the line was disconnected. He was in so much trouble.

 

~o~

 

It shouldn’t have been as attractive as it seemed. It really shouldn’t. And Sherlock shifted in his seat for the hundredth time during the meal. Hell, the man was wearing a simple black oxford and gray sweater vest. It should have seemed old, frumpish, dowdy, plain. And it was anything but. And eating. When did eating become sexual? He’d never found the fascination with food… until now. John Watson propped his chin in the crook of his palm and stole another tortilla chip from the basket. And Sherlock suddenly, deeply wanted some of the guacamole to linger on those fingers, he wanted to clean them with his tongue, he would come up with a hundred new uses for guacamole, he wanted to see what it tasted like on John Watson’s skin.

“You done?” John’s brow lifted slowly. “Or are you still hungry?”

The flush suffused his face instantly, and Sherlock felt, for maybe the fifth time that evening, that John Watson could read his thoughts. Based on the dark glint in the man’s eyes, he was well aware of the detour Sherlock’s thoughts had taken. And now, he didn’t know whether to be mortified or encouraged. He cleared his throat and tore his eyes away from John’s smirking mouth. “I uh… I’m full. Thank you.”

“Excellent,” John barely lifted a finger and managed to catch the attention of their server. “Let me get this.”

Sherlock raised a brow. “I thought I invited you to dinner.”

The smile that spread across his face was something that Sherlock wanted to see repeated again and again, even if it was mocking him. “You can get the next one.” Next one. There was a next one? “Fancy a walk? It’s actually quite mild out, and it’d be good to walk off some of those tacos.”

Sherlock nodded, though he doubted John’s physique was under any distress from a single meal, and followed him out the door. John set a leisurely pace as they turned east. The fresh air was cool against his face, and he wondered just how flushed he’d become. When they were forced to pause at a particularly busy intersection, Sherlock’s breath caught as John’s palm slid into his, their fingers weaving comfortably together. Sherlock glanced down, startled. Not startled enough to pull his hand away, but… Startled.

John’s smile was coy, mocking, wry, amused, impish, teasing. “It’s been such a lovely evening. Bike messengers just come out of nowhere sometimes.”

Sherlock felt a corresponding grin tug at the corner of his mouth. “Sneaky buggers,” he murmured with a chuckle. He looked both ways before they crossed. “One must be cautious.” It was only upon reaching the pavement again that Sherlock even realized where they were. “Where are we heading on this walk of yours?”

John shrugged. “I didn’t have much of a destination in mind. We’re not far from Regent’s Park.” He looked down the street and then back the way they’d come. “The Marylebone is only a skip that way, if you fancied a drink.”

Sherlock dropped his gaze and considered the contrast of John’s tanned hand against his pale fingers for a moment. “Or,” he braced himself. “My flat is,” he waved his free hand toward the park. “Just up the road.”

He finally lifted his eyes to gauge John’s reaction. The pull on the corner of his mouth was slow and steady as John flashed a dangerous smile. “Are you sure that’s wise, Sherlock? I could be some insane stalker.”

Sherlock managed to contain the blush in his cheeks. “Please. You’re a doctor; you’ve told me as much already. I have friends that are aware I’ve met with you this evening. And I’ve a rather absurdly protective brother, who would hunt you down if I should disappear. You wouldn’t be hard to find, given that I have your name and mobile number. Plus, you’ve paid for dinner with a credit card. Hardly the behavior of someone intent on behaving inappropriately.”

John pursed his lips. “All very reasonable precautions.” He stepped closer, crossing the line of companionable into personal space. “Assuming, of course,” he tipped his chin up, making no effort to conceal the path his eyes took as he traced the long line of Sherlock’s throat, his lips, his cheekbones, finally meeting his gaze with a heated expression. “That you want me to behave appropriately.”

Sherlock watched as John’s tongue darted out to wet his lips and struggled to keep from chasing it with his own. He was so close. It would only take the tilt of his head, just a slight bend in his neck, and they’d be nose to nose. It wasn’t conscious, the way he mirrored the movement, wetting his lower lip, before tucking it between his teeth. “I never said that,” Sherlock purred. He was proud of himself. Even with the flash of teeth in John’s grin, he managed to keep his nerves. “Nightcap? I have a lovely bottle of Lagavulin that needs to be appreciated.”

“Alright,” John blinked lazily, his eyes following Sherlock’s mouth. “Lead the way.”

Sherlock pulled himself upright, swallowing back the urge to make out in the middle of the street. “Right.” He gave a small nod and started down the street, fishing in his pocket for keys. It was less than a hundred yards to his door.

“You weren’t kidding,” John chuckled as Sherlock fumbled with the lock.

“Hm?” he finally managed to get the key into the tumbler. “Oh, yes. Technically, this is the definition of ‘just up the road.’”

John brushed his shoulder off of Sherlock’s, “It is, isn’t it?”

“You know,” Sherlock paused, straightening up, his hand on the key. “If _I_ were an insane stalker, this could be dangerous. For you.”

“True,” John ducked under his arm, propping his back against the door and settling in the small frame created by Sherlock’s body. “Maybe I like danger.” He grinned. “Maybe,” he tipped his chin up again, the back of one knuckle skimming the buttons on Sherlock’s shirt. “Maybe it would be awfully ambitious of you to try anything on me.” Sherlock brought his free hand up to rest on the door, caging John in. “I’m pretty sure I could take you in a fight.” John hooked a finger between the buttons and tugged gently, drawing Sherlock closer. “Besides,” warm fingers wrapped around Sherlock’s as the key turned under John’s guidance. “We’ve already decided you’re a rubbish stalker.” The door eased open with John’s careful weight and Sherlock stumbled across the threshold, too distracted to notice the key dragging him forward.

Sherlock chuckled as he caught himself, pulling the keys free and straightening up. “I would be a rubbish stalker,” he admitted, pocketing the keys and closing the door. “Come along, John. The flat’s up this way. On the rocks?” he called over his shoulder.

John bounded up the stairs after him. “Oh please. Neat or with a twist.”

Sherlock whirled into the kitchen and retrieved two glasses. “I should have known,” he muttered to himself.

“Why should you have known?” John leaned against the doorframe and crossed his arms over his chest.

“I…” Sherlock winced as he pulled down the bottle.

“Sherlock?” John chided.

“It’s…” How did he explain about the books? Because the more he knew about John Watson, the more he was convinced that he’d stumbled across a real life version of his character. And the more he felt like he wouldn’t measure up against his own creation. He poured the whiskey and held out a glass almost defensively.

John accepted the glass and tipped it off of Sherlock’s. “Cheers.” And with a pleasant smile, he turned back into the sitting room, occupying himself with the clutter on the shelves, reading the titles of the books and tracing the spines with a careful fingertip. Sherlock watched for a moment before his anxiety got the better of him. He sat in the middle of the sofa, fidgeting with his glass and tracking John with his eyes. “You know, I looked you up last night,” John said softly, pulling a book from the shelf. “Ignatius Bell,” he said wryly, flicking the book open in his palm, skimming the page. “Not what I was expecting,” he flashed a smile.

“No?” Sherlock asked flatly. “What were you expecting?”

John’s mouth twitched. “Something drier for sure. Not just the romance.”

Sherlock huffed and took a swig of his scotch. “Everyone’s a critic.”

John set the book down and started across the room. “I don’t think I said anything critical.”

Sherlock shrugged. “You were going to.” He ran his fingers through his curls, mussing them artfully. “Everyone does. Eventually.”

John set his whiskey on the coffee table, his posture casual, but his expression serious. “Sherlock.” He waited for Sherlock to lift his gaze. “What do you see when you look at me?”

Sherlock leaned back, abandoning his now empty glass on the table and stretched his arms across the back of the sofa. He lifted his gaze slowly, taking in the well fitted, practical jeans that could probably conceal a pistol at the back in a pinch; the shirt buttoned to the collar with what should be a dowdy sweater vest overtop, but it sat just perfectly on his frame; the expensive and durable watch; the comfortable and athletic posture; golden hair, expressive blue eyes, which were currently a deep shade of navy. Sherlock swallowed. “You’re perfect,” he whispered.

John huffed out a laugh and his tongue pressed against his lower lip as he looked at Sherlock with something like amusement. “You know I’m not a double-o-seven? I’m not.” He shook his head slowly. “I’m not Secret Agent Wilson.” He shifted, his eyes narrowing as he studied Sherlock. “You do know that, yeah?”

Sherlock snorted and twisted, looking out the window rather than continue to meet John’s scrutiny head on. “We’ve established that you’re real. That I’ve not struck my head. That this is not some complex hallucination. So yes, John, I know that.”

“Then why,” John leaned forward, planting a hand on the back of the couch next to Sherlock’s shoulder. “Do you seem so convinced that you know what I’m going to do?” Sherlock shrugged his shoulders in a wave of uncoordinated movement. “Because, Sherlock,” John’s palm slid along his jawline, drawing his face back to meet John’s. “I think you’ll find that the unpredictable bits are the best ones.” He dragged his thumb along the boundary of Sherlock’s lower lip. “Yes?”

He sighed and closed his eyes, pressing his cheek into John’s hand. “I’m a disappointment. People don’t like me.” Sherlock started as the firm weight of John’s knees settled on either side of his hips. His lashes fluttered open to find John’s eyes very close and very bright and very focused on him. “John.”

“Do me a favor, Sherlock,” he murmured, his hand sliding further back along Sherlock’s jaw to wind his fingers into the curls at the nape of Sherlock’s neck. “Don’t,” he tugged just hard enough to tip Sherlock’s head back. “Ever.” He leaned forward, crowding Sherlock against the back of the sofa. “Tell me what I like. Hm?” He raised a brow.

Sherlock promised himself the sound that escaped from his throat wasn’t a whimper. It was more of a groan. And he promised himself that his hands weren’t clutching the backrest in alarm, he just didn’t have anywhere better to put them. Except for John’s waist. And as soon as he realized that, he acted on it, wrapping his fingers around to dig into the muscle of John’s back.

The moment he touched John, everything changed. What had been warmth from proximity, crowding without contact, confidence posturing for position became the solid breadth of John’s chest pressing against his, the comfortable weight of John’s pelvis slotting flawlessly on top of his, and John’s lips…

As far as Sherlock could remember, he never used the word ‘claimed’ and his mouth in relation to a kiss. And as far as he was concerned, he never would again. John Watson knew what he was doing. Sherlock tried to keep up with the assault of sensations, but couldn’t maintain attention on any one place for any extended period of time. Lips covered his own, moving soft and slow, wet and well-versed. Fingers twined through is curls, stroked the soft skin beneath his jaw, smoothed down the front of his shirt, slotted into his rib spaces, ghosting, skimming, clutching. And Sherlock knew he moved, he’d shifted, his chin tilted this way and that by confident nudges and assured nips of teeth. And this time he did whimper as John’s tongue pushed past kiss-swollen lips to slide against his own. Whimper, whine, moan, fucking hell, mewl.

His hands were fisted in fine grey knit, his chest heaving for breath as John pulled back, gazing down at him with lust-darkened eyes. The corner of John’s mouth twitched. “Now that,” his nose brushed under Sherlock’s. “That, I liked.”

“Mmn,” Sherlock agreed. “That…” He wet his lips, chasing John’s mouth as it shifted above his. “That was…” Teeth nipped playfully at his lower lip, hands gripped his shoulders, his sides, skimmed lower with light, teasing strokes. “Good.”

“Good?” John tilted his head.

Sherlock grumbled low in his throat. “Really good?”

“I’m sure,” John settled two fingers just beneath Sherlock’s chin, tipping it up. “You can come up with something better than that.”

“Fantastic?” he murmured as John dipped his head. “Wonderful.” Warm lips traced a slow path across his throat. “M-marvelous.” Teeth and tongue met the soft skin beneath his ear and Sherlock lost his speech in a shuddering breath.

“That it?” He could feel the shape of John’s mouth draw back into a smile and his voice rumbled low in his ear. “I thought you were a writer.” Thumbs stroked firmly along the bony ridges of his hips, dipping ever lower with each pass.

A flurry of words ticked through his brain: stunning, incredible, miraculous, phenomenal, awesome, but when his earlobe was enveloped in the wet heat of John’s mouth, the only thing that managed to make it past his lips was a garbled slur of John’s name and a groan.

“God, you’re beautiful.”

It shouldn’t have startled him. Maybe it didn’t. Maybe it was just being touched for the first time in ages. Maybe he was too turned on to think straight, to think at all. But the sensation of firm, steady fingers sliding along his arousal was enough to make him buck violently and uncoordinatedly into the touch with a moan. Maybe a bit too violently. Maybe a bit too uncoordinatedly. And John tumbled to the floor with an aborted sound of protest, landing on his rear and glaring up at Sherlock. “J-John. I’m…” Sherlock clamped a hand over his mouth in horror as he realized what happened.

The expression of ire, pique, vexation, exasperation melted into something of caprice, amusement, levity, humor, and John smiled, grinned, beamed, and burst out laughing. The mirth bubbled out of him, giggles, John Watson was giggling, until he was forced to wrap his arms around his abdomen, and he tipped over onto his side, rolling on the floor with laughter. Sherlock frowned. That wasn’t what he expected.

John reined in the chuckles until he could wipe an errant tear from his eye. “Don’t…” He snorted. “Sherlock, don’t pout.”

“I’m not pouting,” Sherlock crossed his arms. He wasn’t pouting. He was simply cross that he managed to dump the first date he’d had in ages onto the sodding floor. How bloody charming.

John sighed as he rolled onto his knees, propping his chin in his hand and his elbow on the sofa at Sherlock’s hip. “You are,” he wet his lips. “And it’s fucking adorable.” Sherlock grumbled something that most definitely didn’t sound like ‘you’re adorable,’ and chewed on his lower lip. John’s free palm settled on Sherlock’s knee and gave a gentle squeeze, his fingers commencing a rhythmic flexing and relaxing. “If you keep that up, I’m going to come up there and find something better for that lip to be doing.”

Sherlock blushed out to his ears, but released his lip from between his teeth without thought. “I…”

John grinned. “You?” The frustrated sound that finally escaped his throat was followed by a wince and John chuckled. “What?”

“You,” he grumbled.

“Me?” John raised his brows.

“I…” Sherlock made a face and pressed the backs of his knuckles to his lips. “I literally spend my time orchestrating imaginary liaisons like this. It’s how I make a living. And… And I can’t seem to even…”

“Sherlock,” John scolded.

“This should be easy.”

“I should be easy, should I?” John asked with a wry smile.

“No!” Sherlock sat forward and buried his head in his hands. “No,” he muttered. “Ugh, why am I so bad at this? Shut up, Sherlock. Just stop talking.”

“Hey,” John slid his hands over Sherlock’s, his fingers slotting into the web spaces and skimming over his skin. “None of that.” He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to the tip of Sherlock’s nose. “I don’t know if you’ve realized, but I’m not exactly complaining.”

Sherlock scowled. “I dropped you on the floor.”

“And I had a great laugh over it,” John chided, easing Sherlock’s hands from his face.

“You’re still on the floor,” Sherlock pointed out.

John glanced around. “That’s true.”

“I could have hurt you,” Sherlock muttered.

The irrepressible mischief glinted in John’s eyes again. “I should make you kiss it better.”

Sherlock snorted.

“Oh, I’m serious,” John said insincerely with a grin. “Right on my arse.”

Sherlock huffed out a laugh. “You’re mad.”

“I might be.” John’s smile was half interrupted by his tongue catching between his teeth. “You might be a rubbish stalker. So many possibilities.”

Sherlock felt the comfortable smile stretching his face and sighed. “So what do we do now?”

“For starters, I’m getting off the floor.” John pushed himself to stand, cracking his spine and shrugging his shoulders loose. “Now,” he flashed Sherlock a grin. “I think you ought to be a gentleman and walk me out.”

“O-out?” Sherlock stammered, rising quickly to follow John towards the stairs. “But… It’s early, and we…”

John shot a glance over his shoulder as he made his way down the creaky steps to the front door. “We?”

Sherlock let out a flustered sigh and gazed down at John uneasily. “You don’t have to go.”

“I know I don’t have to,” John ran a hand through his hair to right it and gave a quick tug on his shirt to straighten it. “But I’ve a flight tomorrow at an absurd hour and if I stay here any longer, I’m not going to sleep.”

“I’ll make sure you sleep,” Sherlock blurted out.

The smile that flashed across John’s face was heavy with implication. “Listen, I’ve a conference in Istanbul, but then I’ll be back. Four days tops.” He smoothed his palms down the front of Sherlock’s shirt, then caught the open collar in his hands. “There is no need to rush this, Sherlock.” He tugged Sherlock forward for a slow, lazy kiss.

Sherlock folded against him. In spite of the height difference, in spite of the angle, John Watson was entirely in control of the kiss, and Sherlock couldn’t think of anything better. The kiss was broken from his shoulders first, then his neck, and finally his mouth, as John seemed to stand him back upright and straighten the collar still in his hands.

“I think I might enjoy taking this slow.”

Sherlock cleared his throat, but didn’t manage to fully recover the normal pitch of his voice. “Four days?”

“Four days,” John repeated. “I had a wonderful evening.”

“Mmn,” Sherlock reached numbly to his side to pull the door open. “Me too.”

John took two steps out the door and paused, bracing his palms on the doorframe and leaning back inside. “Sherlock?”

“Yes?”

A wide, brazen smile flashed across John’s face. “I will call you.”

“O-ok,” Sherlock squeaked.

He reached up and tweaked one of Sherlock’s curls. “Sweet dreams, Sherlock Holmes.” Then John Watson buried his hands in his pockets and strolled down the street, whistling softly to himself.

Sherlock watched from the doorstep until John had turned the corner. Four days? Four days was ages. It was years, lustrums, lifetimes, eras, eons. When he realized he was blinking at an empty street, he closed the door carefully and dropped his forehead against it with a low grumble and a thud. He was so, incredibly, totally, and royally fucked.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Based on an AU prompt I have long since misplaced... something like: **I’m a writer and your my character and wtf how the heck did you just literally climb out of my first draft?**
> 
> _Foreplay. John’s chin tilted, bobbed up, less than subtly offering his lips, giving Sherlock the moment to decide if he wanted or not. And by God did he want. As if he cared about a cause of death over getting his mouth on John Watson. Not kissing him would become a cause of death. John Watson was going to kill him. ___

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no real TWs for this... just... teasing. And tension. Teasing and tension.

Sherlock was actually surprising himself with his productivity. No, scratch that, he was surprising himself with his productivity _today_. He was resolutely ignoring the first day that he spent in his dressing gown, sulking around his flat. The second day, he’d found a sunny spot in the park and managed to grind out another few chapters. Another few more than he’d expected or been expected to produce. Today, he was hoping to make it well past his weekly quota on the off chance he was otherwise occupied tomorrow. He wanted to be otherwise occupied. He had ideas for how to be otherwise occupied. And he was not in the least bit ashamed of the fact that some of his better chapters were quite vivid descriptions of how he’d like to be occupied with John Watson when he returned. That he’d needed to make multiple editing passes to ensure that he used the correct character name was something he was willing to forgive.

Molly had blushed at the paragraph he’d let her read. That was a good sign. She was, essentially, his target audience. She’d nearly spilled the coffee on his laptop though. They’d agreed that from that point on, she’d only be allowed to sample print excerpts. In the mean time, she’d kept him in a constant supply of coffee, which in turn had kept him in a constant state of mildly agitated productivity. At present, he’d managed to contort himself into his seat, with both of his knees up and one propped on the edge of the table, so he could rock the chair backwards onto two legs. According to Molly, it didn’t look comfortable. But the slow rocking motion occupied the white noise in the back of his mind as he intermittently tapped out passages and chewed absently on his pen. Regardless, he was being ridiculously productive.

A fresh cup of coffee appeared at his elbow. He flicked the pen onto his keyboard, “Thank you, Molly.” He snatched up the cup and took a sip.

“Hello, gorgeous.”

That wasn’t Molly. “John!” Sherlock half jumped, intending to close his laptop, to turn and say hello, to maybe stand up, to make sure his hair wasn’t horridly awry from running his hands through it, to straighten his shirt, to, oh God, get rid of the spare pen he’d tucked behind his ear. All of these things may have been possible if he hadn’t forgotten the fresh and full cup of coffee in one hand and the fact that he was balanced, rather precariously, on two legs of a flimsy café chair. Instead, he let out a high-pitched squeak and flinched as his weight tipped backwards and he headed toward the floor with alarming tilt.

His movement arrested as suddenly as it started and he risked opening one eye. John’s upside down face grinned broadly down at him. “Steady,” he winked. It took Sherlock a moment to realize that John was stabilizing Sherlock’s coffee in one hand and had his own cup of coffee in the other, while the entire weight of the chair was perched on John’s thigh. If he tipped his head back any further, it’d be resting against John’s hip, and the thought made him absurdly dizzy. John caught his lower lip between his teeth and smothered a laugh. “I’m starting to think you’re a bit accident prone.”

Sherlock blinked. “It’s a recent development.”

“Up?” John raised a brow.

“Please.”

The world tilted again, and Sherlock felt the third and fourth leg of the chair snap to the floor. John reached past him, his chest brushing against his shoulder, to set Sherlock’s coffee carefully on the table beside his laptop. “Now,” his breath rustled the loose curls at Sherlock’s ear. “Let’s try that again.” John’s fingers carded briefly through Sherlock’s hair before he crossed to the other side of the table and settled noiselessly in the vacant seat. His smile was blindingly bright. “Hello gorgeous.”

“I thought you weren’t back until tomorrow,” Sherlock stammered absently.

“Ah,” John tilted his head. “I thought so too. But here I am.”

Sherlock stared. It was the most casual he’d seen John dressed—distressed denim that must have been dark at one point blurred the line between fitted and comfortable, a relaxed ecru tee shirt was buttoned to the low collar and half-hidden beneath a tan jacket with turned out chocolate colored, corduroy cuffs and collar. He frowned. How was it possible to look so put together and yet a bit world worn? How did John consistently appear well older than Sherlock, and yet could smile and look like a teenager? How did he always seem relaxed and then pin Sherlock with an expression of intense salacity? He made Sherlock’s blood run hot even as shivers traced down his spine. He left town, a trail of yearning in his wake, and yet could reappear with more accompanying surprise. The collection of contradictions, extremes, oppositions, juxtapositions… Paradox. It was infuriating. “You were going to call.”

The corner of John’s mouth twitched in response. “I was.” He gave a momentary half-smile. “But then I decided to come back early instead.”

Sherlock was distracted by the small movements, the flicks and tics that moved John’s face in unpredictable ways creating a symphony of expression. Fascinating. Exasperating. Sherlock felt his brow furrow in frustration. Was that a bruise on his jaw? “You promised.”

John hummed and took a sip of his coffee. “I brought you coffee.”

Sherlock swallowed and glanced at the cup. “True.” He closed his laptop and tapped a finger on the lid of his coffee. He was contemplating picking it up when his mobile rang. The uncoordinated flail of limbs required to answer it quickly was uncharacteristic and embarrassing. Why couldn’t he keep from acting like a total fool around John Watson? “Hello?”

“Sherlock Holmes.”

He felt his face flush as he glanced across the table. He hadn’t even seen John take out his mobile. Wait, why was he calling? He was sitting right there.

“You beautiful thing,” John’s teeth flashed white with his broad smile. “What are you doing this fine afternoon?”

Sherlock cleared his throat. “Um, working?”

“Oh?”

Sherlock nodded. Stupid. He’s talking on the phone and nodding. No. Idiot. John is sitting across from him, watching, grinning, and his tongue was rolling across his lower lip. And a slightly strangled sound came out of Sherlock’s throat.

“You write anything interesting?” John’s posture was still casual, relaxed, but he’d managed to halve the distance between them.

“I’m…” Sherlock chewed on his lower lip. “Being productive?”

John hummed. “Read me something.”

Sherlock’s face flamed. The fact that John was the living, breathing personification of his rather lascivious and wholly (he thought at least) imagined character, for whom Sherlock had recently concluded a chapter with an extremely descriptive, risqué tryst, was discomfiting. Embarrassing? Unnerving?

“Come on,” John murmured, his voice dropping low. “You could read me the phone book and I’d get hard.”

“John,” Sherlock shifted in his chair.

“Come on.” John’s free hand snaked across the table to brush Sherlock’s fingers. “Indulge me.”

Sherlock set his mobile on the table, “John.”

“You can take me out to dinner,” he continued, dragging his fingertips along the inside of Sherlock’s wrist. “I could eat you for dinner.”

A shiver ran down his spine at the dark look in John’s eyes. He was, possibly, quite serious about eating him. “What…” Sherlock started, his voice catching momentarily. “Uh… What if I don’t want to?”

John raised a brow, the corner of his mouth drawing back.

“I mean go out,” Sherlock stammered quickly. “What if I don’t want to go out?”

John’s eyes narrowed fractionally as the smile grew. “Why, Sherlock Holmes, are you saying we should eat in?”

The squeak that came out of his mouth was significantly louder than he’d hoped. “Maybe?”

John finally lowered his phone and nipped at his own lower lip. “Take away?”

Sherlock nodded. “Your choice?”

“Not Turkish.”

“Fair enough.”

John pursed his lips and gave a sharp nod. “Glad that’s settled.” He carefully plucked the pen from its resting place behind Sherlock’s ear and gazed at it for a moment. “I like this.” He set it on the laptop and sat back in the chair to take a sip of his coffee. With the flicker of a smile he glanced at Sherlock’s cup. “Your coffee will get cold.”

“Not terribly concerned.”

“You wound me.”

Speaking of wounds, Sherlock frowned. “What happened to your cheek?”

“Hm?”

Sherlock gave into the impulse and leaned forward to run his fingers over the slight swelling on John’s jaw. “Did you get punched?”

John scoffed, but held himself steady as Sherlock’s hand fell away. “I wish it were that cool.”

“Not punched?” Sherlock cocked a brow.

“I made the mistake of booking travel through Heathrow. Have you seen baggage collection? Absolute anarchy.”

“Baggage?”

“Some bloke was tugging his bag off the carousel and broke the handle clean off.” John rubbed his chin for a moment. “Probably shouldn’t have been standing so close. My face is at elbow height.”

“People shouldn’t be idiots,” Sherlock grumbled.

The mischief twinkled back into navy eyes. “Said the man who dropped me on my arse a few days ago.”

Sherlock failed to hide the offended expression that came with the sharp inhale. “You… You had a laugh over it,” he protested.

“Maybe I should still make you kiss it better.” Sherlock squirmed in his seat under John’s gaze until John finally relented. “So. Take away.”

Sherlock nodded.

“Your place or mine?”

“Mine’s just around the corner,” Sherlock blurted out and winced.

“Hungry?”

“Maybe.”

“Eager?” John started tracing lazy circles around the lid of his coffee cup with his index finger.

“Pot. Kettle.” Sherlock sucked his lower lip between his teeth and tried to decide if the way John cocked his head was curious or defensive. “You’re back a day early and only stopped home to leave off your luggage before coming here.” John’s silence made Sherlock swallow. Stupid. Stupid, Sherlock. People don’t like it when you do that.

“Good thing you were here,” John said finally. “Think of how disheveled I’d be if I’d had to really go looking for you.”

“You’re not disheveled. Ruffled, maybe,” Sherlock murmured. “Mussed?”

“Keep going,” John purred.

“Rumpled.”

“Yes?”

“Um. Tousled?”

“Definitely going to make you read me the phonebook,” John said almost absently. “Perhaps the dictionary.”

“Mine?”

“After you.” John stood and swept out a hand.

Sherlock tried to slow himself down, tried not to scramble to pack up his things. He failed. And he nearly hit John with his satchel as he swung it over his shoulder. But John chuckled and sidestepped the bag, somehow never in any real danger of being hit or even spilling his coffee.

The walk up Baker Street felt different in daylight. Though, Sherlock couldn’t exactly put his finger on why. There was a similar sense of anticipation, and any time he even glanced at John, the shorter man’s eyes glittered with an indecent level of suggestion. But he wasn’t holding Sherlock’s hand. He’d leaned back against the rail and let Sherlock open the door on his own, no easy flirting, no intervention, no distraction. Just continuous, calm, quiet scrutiny. It was infuriating. It was making his skin itch. The lack of contact from someone as clearly tactile as John Watson was going to drive him around the bend. It still took three tries for Sherlock to get the door open and gesture his guest inside. John’s fingers brushed along Sherlock’s waist as he moved past and Sherlock couldn’t suppress the shiver from the miniscule touch. Fucked. He was totally fucked. He wanted to be fucked. Good Lord, get your head on straight, Sherlock.

John seemed to be leisurely in his progression up the stairs, waiting for Sherlock to catch up and still dawdling, as if making Sherlock wait was productive. Sherlock huffed and pushed past him, pausing on the landing to glare down. “Your legs are short, John, not slow.”

John grinned. “Were we in a hurry? I wasn’t aware.”

“No, but there are a great number of speeds between hurry and that snail’s pace you were setting.” Sherlock reached for the door to his flat.

“Maybe my arse is still a bit sore,” John flashed white teeth with his smile.

Sherlock would never admit that his sigh was closer to a whine, and he steadied himself before responding with his more natural sarcasm. “Perhaps three days sitting on it in a conference is what did the damage?” He raised a brow and threw open the door with a flourish.

“Yes, Sherlock,” John deadpanned, crossing the threshold with an easy confidence. “It was the dull as dishwater conference. In the conservatory, with the lead pipe.”

Sherlock paused and tilted his head as he dumped his bag unceremoniously next to the sofa and shut the door in their wake. “I can’t seem to recall, what color was that piece on the Cluedo board?”

The corner of John’s mouth tugged back into a reflexive smirk as his voice remained even. “Gun metal grey.”

“Right, of course. How silly of me.”

John chuckled. Standing in the middle of Sherlock’s flat, smiling _with a calculated ease and laughing in a way that have you swearing up and down it was a shared inside joke…_ And like that, Sherlock lost his train of thought. It was a complete and total stall, arrest, halt, stand still, freeze, balk, hedge. Filibuster. His brain was filibustering. His writing was filibustering his brain. Was that even possible?

“Hey? Still with me?”

Sherlock sucked in a breath and blinked down at John. John who was standing right in front of him, right where he could reach him, in the middle of the day, in the middle of his flat, an entire twenty-four (if not thirty-six or forty-eight) hours earlier than he should be. “You came back,” he whispered. No. Stupid. Shut up, Sherlock! He snapped his mouth shut – no more nonsense would escape for the next few moments – and furrowed his brow in consternation.

The look of concern didn’t quite leave John’s face as much as it grew, broadened, dilated, swelled, _swelled?! Do not even think of the word engorged_ , expanded to something softer, tender? “Course I did.” What was his face doing? It was infuriating. “Did you think I was just going to run off to Istanbul and stay there?”

Sherlock wrinkled his nose. “No.” Yes. “Maybe? I’ve never been. Is it nice?” Stop babbling you fool. Rambling, nonsensical rubbish.

John’s right shoulder shrugged as the humor returned to the corners of his mouth. “It’s no Constantinople.”

Sherlock snorted and immediately regretted the uncharacteristic, unappealing, insipid, was that insipid? Or vapid? Unbecoming. Yes. Snorting was unbecoming. “That’s terrible,” he couldn’t keep the smile from his voice. Oh, apparently he couldn’t keep it from his face either.

“Terrible in what sense?” John’s grin seemed to mirror his own. “Terrible as in, oh that joke was awful, I will boo you off the stage? Or terrible as in, I’ve met murderers that are more pleasant than your company? Or…” John’s chin tipped up, his eyes dancing with amusement. “Terrible as in, naughty, naughty. You’ve been bad; go to my room?”

His face flamed. Oh. “I… Well…” The last one. Use your words. You’d happily spank him. He could definitely spank you. And that thought did nothing for the blood flow to his brain. “I-I’ve heard most serial killers are quite charismatic?”

There was a flash of teeth, a glimpse of tongue, and glimmer of mischievous navy to accompany the low growl. “Then arrest me.”

O-oh. Even his brain was stammering. The wordless void in his mind filled with irritating ringing sounds. He blinked. No, wait, that was his mobile. Again. And it wasn’t John ringing him this time. John caught his lower lip between his teeth and raised both brows as Sherlock scrambled to free the damn thing from his pocket. “Sorry. Bloody… Stupid… Yes, what?!”

John bit back a laugh and turned his face away to smirk at the bookshelf.

“Sherlock, it’s Greg.”

“Yes, yes. What do you want, Lestrade?” Aside from interrupting my date.

“Look, I know you’re not due in until tomorrow.”

“Then why are you bothering me?” Definitely ruining my date.

John raised a single brow and clenched both hands behind his back, refusing to retreat and give Sherlock his personal space.

Lestrade sighed. “I’ve just gotten called to a meeting tomorrow. It’s silly and nothing but a headache, but it’s going to take all day. And the bosses…”

“Spit it out,” Sherlock grumbled.

“I need you to come in today instead of tomorrow.”

Sherlock felt his entire face pinch in irritation, no disgust, hateful nausea, antipathy, revulsion. “Today?”

“Yeah. Today. Now, if you can.”

“That’s not how this works, Lestrade. That’s not how I work!”

“I know. Sherlock. Believe me, I know. It’s just…”

“Deadlines,” Sherlock muttered.

“Deadlines,” Lestrade agreed. “So…”

“Fine,” Sherlock huffed. “But you owe me.”

Lestrade laughed. “That’s not how this works either.”

“Shut up.” He disconnected the call and wrinkled his nose.

John rocked backwards onto his heels then forward onto the balls of his feet in a forced innocence. “So.”

“Sorry.”

John was still rocking slightly, swaying in and out of his personal space. “Got a meeting then?”

God, he was so close. “John…”

“No, no,” John gave a polite smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Dinner can wait.”

“But you just got back. And you’re hungry.” Sherlock frowned in consternation as John smirked, slowly arching one brow.

“Hungry? Sherlock...”

Was that a yes? It wasn’t a no. Maybe he himself was hungry. Hypoglycaemia? Clearly this was affecting his brain. “Not… Hungry?”

John sucked in one of his cheeks. “Starving.”

Oh. Oh! “I…”

“But you have a meeting.” John shrugged, his expression changing back into one of innocence. No, not innocent, coy? What did people call that look? Puppy-dog eyes? “I’m sure I can feed myself.”

He was teasing again. Sherlock was absolutely sure of it. Teasing. And they certainly weren’t talking about food anymore. But if they weren’t actually on the subject of food, Sherlock was ravenous. And John was right there. And Sherlock could just kiss him right now. Just for being there. He could. Sherlock could kiss him if wanted. He could… OH! He literally could. John’s eyes flicked from momentarily to Sherlock’s lips as that damn smirk reemerged, tugging John’s face into irritatingly attractive creases. “John…”

“Yes, Sherlock?”

There had been words. Hundreds of them. Thousands. Millions. Odes to the fine lines around his lips and dedications to the hues of his eyes. And they vanished, dissipated in the flicker of pink across his lower lip, dissolved in the mirth of azure and cobalt, liquefied and dripped out of awareness. And all that was left was ferocious want. If he felt like being honest with himself (which he wasn’t), the sound was a whine (no, it was a growl), and Sherlock caught that sly, smug, smirking face between his palms and attacked.

Ok, attacked was perhaps a strong word. Definitely a lunge though, assailment, onslaught, a first strike. Totally a first strike. He was on the offensive. And he was kissing John Watson. Sherlock Holmes. Had taken the initiative. And had his mouth on John’s mouth. And had his fingers in John’s hair. And had his tongue brushing against John’s. And… And…

And he didn’t recall taking the step backwards. Or the other three that would have necessitated the fact that his back was against the door, and the firm, compact body of one John Watson was pressing hotly against his front. And how the hell did that even happen? And who the hell cares? And Sherlock was not on the offensive anymore. John’s palms like burning brands, searing their way across Sherlock’s back and hip and Sherlock keened. He was capitulating, yielding, knuckling under the relentless, mesmerizing curl of John’s tongue, caress of his lips, stroke of his fingers. And Sherlock groaned as one strong thigh insinuated itself between his. At least it was a groan this time, a real adult groan. And it was all he could do to keep himself upright as he wrapped his hands around John’s shoulders and held on for dear life. If this was surrender, then he’d find a white flag to hoist in the name of John Watson and fly it forever.

John growled. Yes. Growled. Low. Pleased. And Sherlock shuddered from the sound. Gasped as teeth scraped against the pulse point in his neck. And whined out a complaint as his hips were held firmly against the door. John hummed contentedly, nosing along the underside of Sherlock’s jaw. “God you smell good.”

“John…”

He cleared his throat and slowly peeled himself off of Sherlock, his palms steady in their support of Sherlock’s hips. “You are going to be late for your meeting.”

Sherlock huffed out a desperate laugh. “I’m going to need a few extra minutes.” John giggled. Actually giggled. And it was a weightless sort of sound that brought an obscenely happy smile to Sherlock’s face. “I’ve yet to enter that office with an erection and I’d rather not start.”

“No?” John cocked a brow.

Sherlock shook his head. “Never.”

John smirked. “There’s a first time for everything.”

“Rude.”

John burst out laughing again. “Etiquette one-oh-one. Do not send your date to a meeting sporting wood.”

“John,” Sherlock managed to sound far more scandalized than he truly felt.

“What shall I do with myself while you’re in your meeting then?” John asked politely, taking a step back, ostensibly to allow Sherlock a moment to calm down.

Sherlock sighed and scraped a hand through his hair. “There’s a lovely Thai take-away just down the street from the publishing house.”

John grinned. It was indecent. It didn’t help Sherlock calm down. “Is there now?”

“I could… Meet you there? After my meeting? It should be brief.”

John tilted his head as if considering then gave a resolute nod. “That could work. If it’s all the same to you, I might pop home and shower. I’m a bit plane mucky yet and I’d like to maybe clean off the travel grime.”

“You don’t need to,” Sherlock said quickly.

John’s expression clearly suggested disagreement. “Ruffled, mussed, rumpled, tousled?” John echoed.

“You started that,” Sherlock shot back. “Disheveled?”

“And you agreed,” John said with finality and punctuated it with a peck to Sherlock’s cheek. “So. What kind of food do you like from this take-away?”

Sherlock sighed petulantly. “Green curry.”

“Done.”

 

~o~

 

Sherlock shoved through the door to Lestrade’s office with enough force to slam the glass monstrosity off of the bumper with a dangerous rattle. “Lestrade.”

“Jesus, Sherlock!” Greg frowned and dropped his pen onto the papers spread across his desk. “One of these days you’re going to break that.”

Sherlock’s mouth curved into a vicious smirk. “I look forward to that.” It would be an incredibly dramatic way to enter a room now that he thought about it. Even considering the sounds of tinkling glass pleased him, though the glass was likely shatterproof and would only spider web, not fragment and collapse properly. Dull.

“No you don’t.” He crossed his arms and leaned back in the chair. “But thank you for coming in.”

Sherlock dropped into an artful sprawl in the free desk chair. “You’re not terribly welcome. Can we get on with it?”

“Feeling generous today, are we?” When Sherlock didn’t respond to the goading, Lestrade sighed and held out a hand. “Come on, what have you got for me?” Sherlock had a lot for him, mostly words, mostly rude words and gestures. Cock block sprang to mind. He tossed the papers onto the desk, purposely missing the outstretched fingers. Lestrade stopped just shy of rolling his eyes at the petulant display and collected the sheets into a neat stack. The office was mercifully silent as Greg scanned through the additional chapters, humming and intermittently bobbing his head in agreement or disapproval as he went. “These are good, Sherlock.”

“I know they are.”

“Of course you do.” He set them down. “Can I say I’m surprised at the progress you’ve made in such a short time?”

“You are so very easily surprised, it must be a near permanent state for you at this point,” Sherlock drawled.

“Ok, but you’re actually ahead of schedule. You’ve never been ahead of schedule.” Lestrade paused and narrowed his eyes at Sherlock. “Why are you ahead of schedule?”

“Has it ever occurred to you that this is, in fact, my job, Lestrade? It is what I do.”

A smile twitched at the corner of Lestrade’s mouth. “I know it’s your job. And you steadfastly refuse to work unless it suits you.” He studied Sherlock’s face. “Did you take my advice then?”

“What advice was that?” Sherlock tried to maintain his dispassionate expression, but a light flush managed to color his cheeks. He knew what Lestrade was insinuating. And the fact that he had tried to take that advice… Tried and not yet succeeded.

“That you…” Greg grinned. “How did you put it? Got your pipes cleaned?”

Sherlock scoffed. “That’s disturbing.” He needed his pipes cleaned. By John Watson.

“You did, didn’t you?” He had not.

“What business is it of yours?” Sherlock snapped, standing abruptly and collecting his messenger bag. “My personal life is none of your concern.”

“You try to get involved in mine all the time,” Lestrade countered easily.

“And you didn’t find anything of interest in that last addition, so I’ve revised my read of you.” Sherlock arched a brow. “Not a breast man, anyway.”

Lestrade sighed. “No. And stop that. And keep up the good work. And next week, yeah?”

Sherlock grinned, the vicious edge back in the expression. “You are an interesting man, Lestrade.”

“Get out.” There was no heat in his voice as Greg lobbed his stress ball at Sherlock.

In all the unpredictable ease with which Sherlock moved, he caught it and tossed it back. “Laters.” The door didn’t make the same death rattle when he pulled it open on his way out, but it clanged shut in his wake at a reasonable volume. Suitably annoying for his mood. He waited until he was in the elevator to let out an irritated huff and shake his curls loose. That meeting had been entirely unnecessary. It made no sense for Lestrade to even call him in when it could easily have been put off until the next week. Maybe he’d write Lestrade into the next chapter and kill him off. Yes. Kill him off creatively. And gruesomely. And painfully. A faint smile had found its way back onto Sherlock’s face by the time the elevator reached the lobby. He ignored the polite chime as the doors opened and strode out into the sunlit foyer. And froze.

Oh.

O-oh.

He blinked. Nope, the apparition didn’t disappear. Oh. John Watson was in the lobby waiting. Sitting on one of the offensively modern benches, his posture impeccable, yet looking relaxed and almost small in the expansive room. It didn’t help that the sun was backlighting him, picking out the auric halo of his hair, glowing gold across his tan. Sherlock wanted to memorize it. Sear it into his brain. Burn it onto his retina so it would be the only thing he’d ever have to see again.

Except.

There was a flicker. A small flash of tension. John’s hand balled into a fist and relaxed. And he did it again. Sherlock felt his face crease. Why was John… Oh. The receptionist was gawking. Not even subtle. No wonder he was uncomfortable. And Sherlock frowned at her. She was in a relationship, had been for months now, receptionist for three years, worked here for eight months, had a cat, hates Thai food – who hates Thai food? – allergic to horses. She needed to stop staring at John Watson. That was another person that he’d have to write into the next chapter and kill off. With prejudice.

But then John caught sight of Sherlock and a bright smile bloomed across his face. And Sherlock promptly forgot about the receptionist and her untimely meeting with a trash compactor, and reflexively smiled back. John stood and held up a paper bag, shaking it back and forth in offering. “Hungry?”

Sherlock nodded, finally crossing lobby to escort John out. Escort him home. Ok, maybe straight to his bed…

“I don’t mean to alarm you,” John dropped his voice low, so only Sherlock would hear him. “But that lady has been staring since I got here.”

Sherlock cleared his throat and placed himself directly in the receptionist’s line of sight. He flicked his eyes up to the large banner adorning the vaulted ceiling and wall. His book. With cover art.

John followed his gaze and started momentarily. “Oooh.” He smiled up at Sherlock. “Bit of a resemblance there, no?”

Sherlock chuckled. “A bit.”

“At least they caught my good side.”

“Do you have a bad side?”

John giggled. “We ought to eat this before it gets cold.”

“Cannot abide by cold food.”

“That’s what microwaves are for.”

“Cannot abide by leftover food.”

John elbowed him in the side. “Posh git.”

Sherlock grinned. “Shall we?”

“Mmn,” John nodded. “Meeting go alright?”

Sherlock scoffed. “Tedious.”

 

~o~

 

If attempting to watch John Watson eat Mexican food in public was a mistake, having him over for Thai food was fatal error. For starters, he didn’t go in for the basic green curry. No, of course not. Too… predictable? Liveable? Survivable? No. John Watson preferred pad krapow… Extra spicy. Even the steam off of the container made Sherlock’s eyes water. And the heat from the chilies had left John Watson’s lips just a touch fuller, swollen, pinker? Redder? Pornographic, his mind supplied. No. Stop. And to make matters worse, there was something delicate, graceful, artful? Skilled. Sexy in the dexterity with which he wielded chopsticks. Chopsticks! They are only chopsticks! Pull yourself together!

“Your curry alright there, Sherlock?” John asked around a mouthful of rice and essentially napalm.

“Hm?” Sherlock nodded before he’d caught up with the question. Oh good. How articulate, Sherlock. “Yes. Good. Yours?”

“Fantastic,” John smirked and held out a healthy bit of food on offering. “Want some?”

Yes. “No,” Sherlock felt his face color. Just the smell of it was enough to make him sweat. “Nope. Thank you.”

“Just,” John tilted his head. “You don’t seem too interested in your food.” He smiled around another bite of flaming death. “And you keep watching mine.”

“Pondering the level of capsaicin one could imbibe without dying from gastrointestinal complications.”

A slow grin stretched across John’s face. “More likely to suffer from excess sympathetic cascade and acute MI.”

“Really?” That was not the normal response he received to his odd hypotheticals.

John hummed and nodded. “Think so.”

“But if you were going to kill someone with it,” Sherlock leaned forward, invested, now excited by the conversation for a completely different reason. “How much would they need to consume? Approximately?”

John sucked his lower lip between his teeth as he thought about it. “Maybe three grams? Four?” Then he frowned, shrugged, and shook his head. “Hard to say. It’s tricky to hide the flavor.”

“Four grams. That’s not exactly a profound amount.” Sherlock started to wonder about casing, about pill forms, about powders and oils and…

John chuckled. “Sherlock, there’s maybe five or ten milligrams of pure capsaicin in this,” he gestured to his food with the ends of his chopsticks. “You can’t even look at it without sweating. How are you going to get four grams into someone’s food?”

“Well,” Sherlock set his food aside and steepled his fingers beneath his chin. “What if you used the oil in a coated gel capsule?”

John shook his head wryly. “It would eat through that in a heart beat.”

“Alright,” Sherlock bobbed his head in contemplation. “Mixed it with another food, a strong flavor, wasabi?”

“Too spicy. You’d know right away.”

“Fine. Hidden in dairy? Like in a cheese or…”

John laughed, finishing off his food and setting the container aside. “You really want to find a way to kill someone with capsaicin, don’t you?”

“I do this for a living,” Sherlock offered frankly.

“I hope not,” John huffed. “But you’d be better off using it as an inhalant. Hundred times more effective than mace. Could you imagine trying to breath through that?”

Sherlock knew his smile was probably obscene. “So, you would just spray them with it?”

John’s face did something complicated. Not quite a flinch, not a wince, not a frown, and not entirely amusement. “Would I just spray them in the face?”

“No. No, no, no,” Sherlock waved him off. “I don’t mean… I know you’re a doctor. I’m not implying…”

John pursed his lips. “I mean, it would work really, really well if they were an asthmatic. You could swap their inhaler. It would certainly show up in the PM, but if you did it well, you’d have a murder weapon and cause of death, but no murderer.”

Well that was clever. That was damn clever. Sherlock grinned. “John, that’s brilliant.”

“Please don’t kill anyone with capsaicin. I don’t want to be forced to testify against you.” John was fidgeting with his chopsticks again

“Literary license. As if I’d get caught,” Sherlock laughed. John smiled at his mirth. Then his grin grew bold as he held the tip of his tongue between his teeth. “What?” Sherlock hummed. John simply shook his head. “No, what? You have this…” Sherlock flapped his hand at John. “This look. Like you just figured something out. Like you know something.”

“Like I know… something?” John asked wryly.

“You are literally biting your tongue to keep from telling,” Sherlock accused.

“Maybe I don’t think I should tell you.”

“Why shouldn’t you tell me?”

“Maybe I should show you.”

Oh. “Oh.” Sherlock blinked. He watched as John set the chopsticks down and suck the grease from his food off the pad of his thumb. “Oh.”

John raised a brow. “Come over here.”

Sherlock scrambled out of the chair he was perched on. It certainly didn’t actually tip over for all his excitement. Certainly not. And he circled around the table to reach John. But then, he was around the table and… Now what? John eased his chair away from the table, opening himself towards the room and watched Sherlock with amusement. Sherlock shifted uneasily. “Alright.”

The corner of John’s mouth twitched. “Closer.” Oh. Right. Closer. Nearer. Improved proximity. Yes, of course. He inched closer. Their knees were nearly touching. “Sherlock,” John tilted his head. “It’s a secret.”

“Oh.” Sherlock furrowed his brow. Then John crooked his finger, beckoning him closer still. “Oh.” He braced a hand on the back of John’s chair and stooped.

John moved faster than Sherlock expected, wrapping a hand around the nape of his neck and pulling him off balance enough that he wound up straddling John’s lap. He scrambled to get his other hand on the back of the chair and straighten himself out. Well… not straight. John’s fingers had twined into the curls along the base of his skull, and his other palm was slowly making its way up the outside of Sherlock’s thigh. And Sherlock decided that John’s lap was definitely not a bad place to be.

“I figured it out, Sherlock.”

He shivered, shuddered, let the low purr of John’s voice wrap around him as silkily as the breath that puffed along his ear. “Oh?” He swallowed. “What did you figure out?”

John grinned. Sherlock knew he was grinning. Something in the pause, the way he took a breath, the movement of his lips just shy of touching skin. “The capsaicin problem.”

“O-oh,” Sherlock tried not to keep his eyes from going wide as John shifted, drawing Sherlock’s face in line with his own. “Really?” He was expecting the mischief in John’s eyes, fully expecting, and was totally not prepared.

“Mmn,” John seemed completely focused on Sherlock’s lips. “Absolutely.”

“Hm?”

“Mmn.”

Sherlock wet his lips. “How?”

Foreplay. John’s chin tilted, bobbed up, less than subtly offering his lips, giving Sherlock the moment to decide if he wanted or not. And by God did he want. As if he cared about a cause of death over getting his mouth on John Watson. Not kissing him would become a cause of death. John Watson was going to kill him. And Sherlock couldn’t bring himself to be bothered as he closed the small distance with a quick duck of his head and set about snogging John Watson within an inch of his life. Or trying to. He’d succeed or die trying. Because John Watson knew what he was doing. And with lips and tongue and teeth, maybe death was inevitable. It’d be an inch of his own life, really, Sherlock thought absently as he tilted his head in an attempt to deepen the kiss.

John Watson tasted like chili. And rice and beef and that tea he’d been drinking. And the flavor was all the more fascinating for the texture of tasting it from John’s tongue. Persistent. Methodical. Excellent. Brilliant. Sherlock hmmed his approval of the tingle on his lips, the light friction along his front, the tension of the pull of his curls against John’s fingers. But God, his mouth. Sherlock sucked in a sharp breath as teeth closed around his lower lip, tugging as John swept his tongue across the captured flesh. The tingle was building. Itching. Biting. Burning. Oh Jesus! John released his lip and sat back with a self-satisfied smirk on his face. Oh, God! Sherlock blew out a breath through pursed lips. His mouth was on fire! Fuck! On Fire!

Sherlock had no idea where the glass of water came from, but he gulped it down quickly. John continued to watch with amusement, his tongue rolling out to lick the last of the flavor away. “Alright there?”

Sherlock let the glass thunk down on the table behind him and narrowed his eyes at John. “You’re the devil.” John broke out in a peal of laughter, dropping his forehead against Sherlock’s shoulder as he shook with the force of his giggles. “No, no,” Sherlock hissed, glaring at the top of John’s head as the burn of capsaicin lingered on his tongue. “I think you really might be the devil.”

John huffed out a final laugh and lifted his chin, blinking up at Sherlock from beneath long lashes. “Me?” he held his lower lip firmly behind his teeth as he raised both brows.

“You,” Sherlock nodded decisively.

John pursed his lips to hide a smirk. “Who exactly was trying to murder someone with capsaicin?”

Sherlock hummed as fingers skimmed down the knuckles of his spine and two warm palms cupped his hips. “I didn’t mean me.”

“Of course you didn’t.”

“And I certainly didn’t need a demonstration,” he pouted.

“Of course not.”

“And I’ll thank you for keeping your clever thoughts to yourself.”

“Of course. You get to have all the clever thoughts from now on.”

“And you,” he fixed John with a very serious, very calm glare. “Will go wash your hands this instant.”

“My hands?” John tilted his head to the side.

“Yes.” Sherlock cautiously extracted himself from John’s grasp. “I have some more clever thoughts on where you might put them, but for the love of all that is holy, I do NOT want those places burning.”

John threw his head back and laughed.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Based on an AU prompt I have long since misplaced... something like: **I’m a writer and your my character and wtf how the heck did you just literally climb out of my first draft?**
> 
> _It was hard to smile when you were rather focused on the feel of someone’s tongue sliding against yours. And it was hard to smile when you were quite convinced that the only oxygen getting to your brain was second hand from someone else’s lungs. And it was definitely hard to smile when that someone managed to vaporize all thought from your head with the low rumble that vibrated against your chest._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still aiming for 5 chapters on this one. I think I might need to post my notes as an appendix at the very end, because the notes for this are hilarious... As are my beta comments which tend to be highly encouraging keyboard smashes.
> 
> Sorry this took so long. Those of you who know me, know that smut takes me a long time to write. And... well... this chapter is... fucking flithy? Also, here's the turning point where shit starts to hit the fan. So, some resolution of all the UST... Some... Not all... because where would be the fun in that? Plus... I'm nearly doubling the word count since this is a 12k chapter... YAY! Go forth and enjoy!

“Alright, alright,” John smiled and patted Sherlock’s hip. “Let me up. I’ll go clean my hands.”

Sherlock slipped off of John’s lap and stretched, letting his shoulders roll back to what felt normal as he rocked his head side to side. He blinked his eyes open to find John standing as well. Standing close. Very close. Very, very close. And it was timed, it had to have been, the way John’s eyes traced, raked down his body before meeting his gaze. Sherlock blushed. He could feel the heat in his cheeks to match the heat in John’s stare and there wasn’t much he could do to keep from leaning forward, listing, gravitating. John let out a low rumble of approval. Satisfaction? Assent? Implication. And Sherlock was going to kiss him. Again. Yes. Good. Kiss him again. Want. Yes. NO!

“Hands!” Oh God, that came out as a bit more of a squeak than a command. Sherlock cringed internally and felt his blush deepen.

The smile was slow, starting in one corner and drawing out until John was grinning again. And he held up both hands in surrender. “Ok, alright. You’re right. Where’s the loo?”

Sherlock cleared his throat, managing a much more normal timbre, thank God. “Through the kitchen, on the left.”

“Back in a tick.”

Sherlock didn’t move. He held perfectly still, tracking John out of the room, through the kitchen, first with his eyes then by sound until the door clicked shut. Then the breath he’d been holding escaped in a huff as he sagged against the lip of the table. This was torture…

He groaned and ran both hands through his hair. He couldn’t just stand there. Well he could, but that would be ridiculous. No. With a grumble, he started collecting the take-away containers and tidying the table. A moment later, he binned the rubbish and glanced at his own hands. Probably ought to wash those now too. So he did. And dried them. And refilled his water glass. And then righted the chair that he definitely hadn’t knocked over. And… Get yourself together, Sherlock! With another frustrated and rather whinging sound, he stalked over to the couch and flopped onto with a flourish.

“Well this looks familiar,” John hummed from the kitchen entryway.

Sherlock’s head snapped up at the voice and his quick rake of John, leaning casually against the wall, arms crossed, and dear God, he’d cuffed his sleeves. Sexy. Was that sexy? Why was that sexy? Showing a little forearm? And John moved, slightly, barely, minutely, and the cords and muscles in his arms shifted and Sherlock felt that damn color creeping back into his face. “Familiar?”

“If I come over there,” John gave a small nod in Sherlock’s direction. “Are you going to drop me on my arse again?”

“If?” Sherlock raised a brow. No possible way John Watson would dare to… No, no. He actually might. He actually might just stand on the other side of the room and tease all night. “If I did, I can assure you that I’ll kiss it better this time.” There. Yes. Smooth, Sherlock. He was inordinately proud of himself until he saw the expression on John’s face. It could have been a trick of the light, possibly, maybe. It wasn’t. John Watson’s eyes darkened to navy, and something… small muscles in the jaw? Tight? Sly? Avaricious? Rapacious. Voracious. Oh Lord, predatory.

John Watson was not going to tease from across the room. John Watson was going to tease from front and center. John Watson was… Sherlock gulped as John actually stepped up, on, and over the coffee table without breaking stride and efficiently settled himself on Sherlock’s lap, his knees tucked in tight against Sherlock’s hips. “As tempting as that sounds,” he planted both hands on the back of the sofa, effectively caging Sherlock in. “Maybe this time you just don’t drop me. Hm?”

“Yes.” Sherlock nodded eagerly. “Don’t drop you. Of course.”

“Maybe.” Oh and there was that tongue, that talented, wicked tongue, swiping out across his lower lip. “Maybe you ought to, I dunno,” and the smirk. That smirk that meant that John was being clever and devastating all at once. And John’s fingers wrapped gently around Sherlock’s wrists and lifted his hands from their desperate grip on the couch and replaced them on the afore mentioned arse. “Hold on?”

Oh. Oh!

Sherlock’s fingers flexed of their own accord, digging into firm, denim encased muscle. “Hold on. Yes. Clearly. Yes.”

“Firm grip now,” John hummed, wiggling pleasantly on Sherlock’s lap.

He hadn’t meant to laugh. It was just a small huff. But the way John moved caused the two palmfuls of flesh to flex and press back against him and that was… Something. Something? What? Sherlock couldn’t reengage the word-finding section of his brain.

“Now, where were we?”

Apparently, they were at the point where John Watson was mapping the inside of Sherlock’s mouth, and was slowly stealing all of his air, and was sucking on Sherlock’s lower lip. And running his tongue along it. And nipping at it. And dear God his head was spinning again. And his ears were ringing. John groaned, and it took Sherlock a moment to realize it wasn’t a sexy groan. It was an irritated groan. And then he was pulling away. No. No. Why were they always stopping with the kissing?

“Hold that thought,” John murmured, pressing a light kiss to the corner of Sherlock’s mouth as he pushed off the couch. Oh. Not his ears ringing. John’s mobile was ringing. Well, that was probably good. Good? Not good.

Sherlock tried not to grumble. Ok, maybe he didn’t try terribly hard, but he did try. Maybe it was the tiniest bit worth it to watch John bend over to fetch his mobile from the pocket of his jacket. The tiniest bit. It was a lovely view. And Sherlock wove his fingers into his curls to keep from reaching out. It was a near thing. So was the noise burning at the back of his throat, but he wasn’t about to let that sound out either.

“Hello.” John flashed a grin and wink Sherlock’s direction before turning his back to skim the book titles on the shelf as he took the call. He was aiming for casual, but he missed. And Sherlock felt his brow crease as he scrutinized him. Why wasn’t that casual? It wasn’t quite detached enough, not exactly apathetic, not… unconcerned. It was actually painstakingly concerned. Easygoing in an agitated way. Premeditated disinterest. It was the sensation of watching through hand-blown glass, a funhouse mirror. Warped just enough to be uncomfortable. “Go ahead.”

John’s finger tapped idly on the spine of one of the books. He probably couldn’t reach the top shelf without a stool or a chair or a ladder, Sherlock mused. Shame. That was where he kept all his first editions and leather bound signed copies. That was where the valuable books were. Visible but unreachable. He’d like to show those to John someday.

“Tomorrow?!” John’s shoulders stiffened and his spine snapped into an achingly upright posture. “I literally only landed this afternoon!”

Sherlock sat forward on the couch, stopping just shy of actually standing. The mood shifted, dampened, chilled, darkened. Dimmed with the tone of John’s voice and the stiffness in his bearing. Oh no. John’s left hand balled into a fist, trembling with the tension that hummed through his frame. It pulled the energy from the flat, the sound, the shuffle, the creaks and sways, pooling into silent sink of the one-sided conversation. And Sherlock found himself holding his breath.

“We have discussed this before.” John’s voice dropped into a low growl that had Sherlock shuddering for a completely different reason this time. “I really don’t think you want me to repeat myself.” John snorted and heaved a sigh at the ceiling with the response. “Yeah, I’ll bet he does…” Sherlock had never heard words bleed with implied violence before, but… John glanced at his watch and frowned. Even from across the room, Sherlock could see his jaw clench. “This is the last favor I do him, Bill. I’m fresh outta good will.” He nodded, once and sharply, “Ta. See that he does.”

John jabbed at disconnect and let his arm fall to his side. And Sherlock thought of a wilting plant with the slow droop of John’s shoulders, his neck, his spine. He looked tired, drained, exasperated, exhausted, fatigued, wrecked. And it tugged at something deep in Sherlock’s chest. And in the blink of an eye, it was gone. John was standing… normally? Comfortably? Casually? No. Not casual. Restrained. Annoyed? God this was infuriating. And only made more so, because Sherlock was dead certain that anyone else wouldn’t have noticed the fleeting change.

“Sorry,” John murmured, turning back around with a wry smile. “Duty calls.”

“Calls you… where?”

John sighed and crossed back to the couch, perching on the arm rather than sitting. Ready to leave, Sherlock thought miserably. John shifted, angling his body toward Sherlock. So, leaving, but not because of Sherlock. That was even more infuriating. “Birmingham.”

“Right now?” Oh that sounded weak even to his own ears.

“First thing in the morning. I’ll have to leave at arsehole o’clock to get there as is.”

“Ah.”

“Mmn,” John hummed.

“For the day?” Sherlock asked hopefully.

John’s mouth twitched. “The rest of the week. Oh, don’t look at me like that.”

He was acutely aware that his frown was more parts pout than frown, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. “Why not?”

John’s eyebrow crept up as though he was fighting the urge to laugh. “Because I might have to do something about it.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “Promises, promises.”

John’s lips pursed and Sherlock was caught by the idea that he was literally biting back words. Mischievous words. Provocative words? It was an appealing look. “I suppose this is something of an… unsatisfying end to the evening?”

“Anticlimactic?” Sherlock offered, shifting against the cushions.

“Unproductive?” John let the grin escape.

“Impotent,” Sherlock exaggerated his pronunciation and immediately blushed at the way John’s eyes raked him.

“Doesn’t look it from here,” John mused. Sherlock’s huff of frustration cut short as he found himself nearly nose to nose with what was becoming a familiar, roguish, arch expression. “Doesn’t… Have to be.”

Ok, John could move damn fast when he wanted. “N-no?”

John planted a hand on the back of the couch and leaned forward. “Not at all.”

Oh God, when John smiled like that he had dimples. How had Sherlock missed that? Dangerous. “Oh?” He retreated; listing onto the hand he’d reached out behind himself, his palm sinking into the leather of the cushion.

“Mmn.”

He was going to blame the shift in the couch cushion when John planted a knee in the space between his thighs. Because it made him feel better than blaming the fact that he’d misjudged his center of gravity, and that his palm was sweating and lost traction on the leather, and that John’s proximity made his brain melt into a blubbering mess of nonsense. Though no specific point of blame could reverse the embarrassment of collapsing onto the sofa like a swooning maiden, letting out a small “Oof,” as his back hit the leather.

John seemed the opposite of bothered by Sherlock’s torment. Or maybe, not that specific type of torment. “Oh, hello,” he grinned down at Sherlock, bracing with a steady hand on the arm of the sofa behind Sherlock’s head.

“Hi.”

“Funny meeting you here.” Sherlock groaned and tried to hide his face in the throw pillows. John’s chuckle was warm and very, very close. “Don’t be silly, this is nice.” The tip of John’s nose traced the curve of his ear. “This can be very nice.” Then warm lips trailed down his neck and Sherlock started to question the wisdom of exposing that soft skin to John Watson’s mouth. What had been lips and puffs of exhale became the press of tongue and the lightest nip of teeth, and as John blew a slow stream of air over the dampened skin, Sherlock’s breath caught and the word gorgeous overlaid the gooseflesh that rose along his neck.

And it was too much, and not enough. Because as lovely and pleasing and delicious and delightful and gratifying and winning and pulchritudinous and… sweet… Sweet? It was torture. It was teasing. It was cruel that he was only touching Sherlock with his lips. And his tongue. And it wasn’t fair. And whatever, that wasn’t a whine. And Sherlock was certainly not ‘groping’ John’s arse. This was direct and purposeful contact. This was to… To something, something, something. It felt fucking good. John gave a pleased hum or groan or growl. It was closer to a growl. And he shifted, one thigh slotting easily between Sherlock’s, but he was still horribly, frustratingly, somehow far away.

“What do you want?”

Sherlock twisted, tried to glare at him. But John had ducked his head to focus more attention on the skin exposed at the open collar of his shirt. And in spite of the encouragement of his hands, fondling, grabbing, stroking, pawing, groping? He was NOT groping. John Watson was holding himself firmly just a hair too far out of reach. “Tease,” Sherlock accused.

John chuckled low and filthy. “C’mon, Sherlock. You’re the creative one. Surely you have some ideas?”

Creativity wasn’t the issue. He had ideas. He had a lot of ideas. He had… too many ideas. And the scrape of teeth across his adam’s apple was not going to help him narrow down that list. He groaned and arched. “Anything.”

“Nuh uh,” John nosed at his chin. “What do you _want_?” A proper nip on his jaw finally released the breathy squeak burning in his vocal cords and John pulled back to stare at him in a way that Sherlock could only define as smug. But he didn’t ask again, just waited. And Sherlock was decidedly not nearly as patient.

“I want to feel it every day you’re away.” In spite of the flush he felt deepen along his cheeks, Sherlock was desperately proud of how well he’d balanced his voice.

John’s breath puffed out in a short punch and his eyes went from dark navy to black. “Next time.” Sherlock managed a quick sip of air and John Watson wasn’t holding himself back anymore. “God, next time,” John pressed his words into Sherlock’s lips. “I promise.”

He didn’t know what that meant. Frankly, he didn’t care. Because John had let his weight settle on top of him, his thigh rocking up against Sherlock’s erection and finally, finally providing him with the necessary friction and pressure that he’d been wanting for, needing, craving, languishing in his… “Hng!” Oh God! John’s hand had found its way between them, cupping and fondling him through his trousers. Oh sweet fucking Christ. “John,” he panted into the kiss, bucking his hips up into John’s palm.

“God, look at you.”

Sherlock groaned and fisted both hands John’s hair, pulling his mouth back down to meet his own. Maybe he could die from this. The soft clink of a belt buckle was drown out in another gasp and whine, and when did John manage to get his trousers open? And “AH! John!” The warm and calloused palm wrapped around his cock and pulled and Sherlock felt his eyes roll back.

“That’s it,” John purred, his hand picking up a steady rhythm as he lipped his way back out to Sherlock’s ear. Sucking on his earlobe. Sherlock definitely whimpered. And when the teeth closed around that soft bit of flesh, the whimper turned into a choked off wail and John’s voice rumbled, gravelly and sure, “That’s it, gorgeous.”

For all that Sherlock was taller than him, John Watson was broader and a solid weight, that surrounded him, encompassed, fenced him in against the corners of the couch, enveloped. Heat pooled at the base of his spine, coiling tight. Tighter. And he was so close. So close. His hands scrabbled for purchase against John’s back, collecting fistfuls of soft cotton, pulled taught over firm muscle. And he tried to hold on, tried to grab some thread of coherent thought as everything John did seemed in effort to wipe his mind clean. John’s thumb swept up along his slit, gathering more moisture than Sherlock thought possible and easing the slide of his hand as the pace kicked up a notch. “John. John!” Fingers dug into his hair, tugging just enough that his neck arched and he let out a small sob. He felt his back bowing, even as his hips strained.

“C’mon, Sherlock,” John growled into his neck, under his jaw. Nipping. Sucking. Oh God, whatever it was he was doing there would leave a mark. “I’ve got you.” He didn’t care. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so… Wanton. Shameless. Desperate. Lord help him, he was desperate. “Just let go.”

And for a fraction of a second, Sherlock worried about the fact that in all of this, he’d not even tried to get John off. He’d not even reached, he’d been so caught up, he’d not… Not… Done whatever it was John’d just done with his wrist and, shit, his tongue. And teeth closed over that spot on his neck. And. A-and… “FUCK!”

 

~o~

 

Sherlock frowned and drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair as his pen flicked angrily across the text. Wrong.

“It’ll be just another moment, Mr. Holmes. He’s on a conference call that’s run a bit over.”

He waved a hand at the secretary as if to brush him off. He was waiting. In his publisher’s office. He was being made wait for a meeting that his publisher had scheduled. This was horrid. This was also horrid and wrong. His pen slashed through the text. Also wrong.

“Still have a job then, Freak?”

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “Oh, Sally. How I’ve missed our witty banter.”

“Surprised you’re here at all. I haven’t seen anything of yours to edit in the past few months.”

Must they do this every time? “Perhaps that’s because your skills are not required, Sally,” Sherlock responded, and he hoped he sounded as bored as he actually was. God this was dull.

“Here to get fired?”

Well, now it was a party. “Anderson,” Sherlock didn’t bother to turn. He’d recognize that voice anywhere. Vaguely reminded him of nails on a chalkboard. “I rather expect Lestrade is going to compliment me on being well ahead of schedule this time.”

Anderson snorted. “Not bloody likely.”

Sherlock sighed, tucked the red pen behind his ear, and propped his chin in the palm of his hand. “Shocking though it is, I find your ability to breathe and preamble simultaneously more so.”

“Is that a hickey on your neck?”

Sherlock bristled, his neck and shoulders stiffening before he painstakingly turned to glare at Anderson. “Is that, somehow, any of your business?”

“It is,” Sally accused. “How do you end up with a hickey?”

“Experimenting with the hoover?” Anderson sneered.

Sherlock stood, pulling himself to his full height. Anderson often forgot the extra inch of height Sherlock possessed and he knew every trick in the book to make him feel it. He narrowed his eyes dangerously and counted slowly to five in his head. The silence alone made the man squirm and Sherlock leaned in, dropping his voice to a low purr. “I will not be kink-shamed by someone who twins office-romance with extramarital affairs to get off.” He lifted his chin to look over his shoulder and glare menacingly at Sally.

Her face blanched. “I…”

“Now wait just a second!” Anderson squawked.

“Holmes!” Lestrade barked from his office door. “Stop tormenting my staff and get in.”

Sherlock turned back to Anderson, tilted his head, and stuck out his lower lip in an obscene mockery of a pout. “Your work is slipping.” He smacked the paperback he’d been editing to the man’s chest and stalked into Lestrade’s office.

“Sir!” Sally started.

“Both of you get back to work!”

Sherlock watched Lestrade slam the door and storm to his desk, his shoulders staying rigid until the pair of copy editors was out of sight. Then Lestrade sighed, slouched into his chair, and gave Sherlock a wry smile. “Did you mark up that book just to piss him off?”

“Really the grammar was atrocious,” Sherlock offered. It was. For copy editors to miss such blatant misspellings and the commas, my God. “He does know that the semicolon exists?”

Greg grinned. “Maybe.”

It was mollifying that Lestrade didn’t particularly like the pair as people. Sally was, nearly unforgivably, actually good at her job. Good eye for detail. Near encyclopedic knowledge of grammatical rules. Decent respect for literary license. Did not approve of his particular genre. Anderson, on the other hand… “You do realize I could perform both his job and mine with very little effort.”

Greg huffed and shook his head. “I’d rather keep my authors on contract, thanks.”

Sherlock shrugged. “Your loss.”

“Yeah. I know.” He shrugged. “Sorry for the delay. I was definitely not expecting that call. I also wasn’t expecting you until Monday. Why today?”

“I’ve been productive.”

“Productive?”

“If there is a problem with your hearing, I suggest you visit a doctor.”

“Right.” Greg rolled his eyes and held out a hand. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”

Sherlock pulled out a fresh print of his two new chapters and passed them across. He didn’t miss the flick of Lestrade’s eyes to his neck then back to the papers as he sat back in his chair.

“Two chapters?”

“Mmn,” Sherlock hummed. “I was feeling inspired.”

Greg squinted at him then turned back to the paper, starting to skim the text. “You’ve been quite inspired lately,” he murmured.

Sherlock frowned. “Problem?”

“No, no,” Lestrade’s brows went up without his eyes leaving reading. “Just… saying.”

Sherlock snorted. “Articulate as ever.” A grin flashed across Lestrade’s face and faded as he kept reading, the lightest hint of a blush emerging on his cheeks. Oh, that was interesting. It wasn’t the normal type of blush he was used to seeing in response to his work. It wasn’t arousal. It was… It was embarrassment? Strange. Lestrade’s eyes flicked from the page to Sherlock’s neck and back to the page. Oh. Oh! Sherlock smirked. Discomfort. Unease. Chagrin. An abashed agony. Fascinating.

Lestrade cleared his throat and set the pages down on his desk, drumming his fingers against the hard surface. “So…”

“Yes?” Sherlock drew out the sound of single syllable word.

Something of a grimace appeared and disappeared from Lestrade’s face. “You’ve been… Throwing yourself into the work recently.”

Clever turn of phrase. “Only investing in experience,” Sherlock said suggestively.

“You cannot create experience…” Greg offered.

“You must undergo it,” Sherlock finished easily, raising a brow with a sly smile.

Lestrade shifted. Uncomfortable again. Intriguing. “Look, Sherlock…”

Sherlock waved him off with the flip of his hand. “I assure you, I have no intention of taking up Camus’ particularly fustian diction.”

“No, it’s not that.” Lestrade started fidgeting with one of the many pens strewn across his desk, rolling it back and forth before picking it up to twiddle between his fingers. “Don’t… Be careful not to put too much of yourself into your work, yeah?”

Sherlock scoffed and pushed out of his chair. “Really, Lestrade? What makes you more uncomfortable? The fact that I possess the ability to self-insert or the fact that you’ve just never recognized it before?”

Lestrade’s face colored. “Sherlock…”

“No, no. Do go on. I love the sound of you being wrong.” Sherlock crossed his arms and waited. When Lestrade didn’t take the bait, Sherlock flashed a vicious smile. “Thought so. I’ll see you next week.”

Lestrade sighed as Sherlock turned his back. “Do me a favor in the mean time?”

“What?” Ok, that came off sounding a bit more petulant than he’d intended. Sherlock waited with his hand on the door, ready to leave as soon as humanly possible.

“Could you not kill off Melanie in a wood-chipper?”

Sherlock flashed a grin at his shoes.

“I’ve no idea what she’s done to you. But she’s been with us for three and a half years. And she happens to be a fan of yours. Be nice to her.”

Sherlock gave his best beleaguered sigh. “Reports of her death are greatly exaggerated.”

“Thank you.”

Sherlock pushed the door open and paused, turning to give Lestrade a speculative look. “So you’re rather into possessive marking and love bites then?”

“Get out!”

 

~o~

 

He squinted at the screen, rereading the last sentence. It was off. He sucked his upper lip in behind his lower lip and frowned. Why was that off? _Wilson could feel the shiver that ran through her, and he smiled. He feathered kisses down her neck and across her shoulders, swirling his fingers ever downward…_ Ugh. Sherlock wrinkled his nose. Why did that sound so terrible in his head? Oh… _Her_ … He sighed. Dull.

When his mobile rang, he almost jumped at the distraction. Jumped because it had been near silent in his flat. And jumped because staring at the same three lines of text over and over was going to drive him round the bend.

“Hello, Sherlock.”

Ugh. Maybe this was worse. It was certainly more dull. “Mycroft.”

“Working from home today?”

“Working being the operative word.”

“Did you bother getting dressed?”

Sherlock glanced down. He had thrown a robe over his pyjama pants. It was close enough. “Of course.”

“That’s good.”

“What do you want, Mycroft?”

“Regarding our previous discussion.”

“Oh God, that again?” Sherlock huffed and stomped into the kitchen. “Don’t you have anything better to do than harass me?”

The receiver must have been covered with a hand. Casual. Mycroft was never casual. He was meant to hear. “Ah, yes thank you, Colonel.” There was the deep hum of a response and Mycroft returned. “Well that’s good, isn’t it.”

“What exactly is going on with you, Mycroft? You’re never this vague.”

Mycroft made a tutting sound. “I’ve heard your current project is coming along.”

Sherlock sighed.

“I’ve also heard you have a new friend.”

And Sherlock froze. Mycroft had taken note of John. That could be terrible, if for no other reason than Mycroft would inflict a meeting upon him. And that was to be avoided at all costs. “Are you spying on me?”

“I don’t spy, Sherlock. You are rather prone to hyperbole.”

“Stay out of my personal affairs.”

“You know that’s not entirely possible.”

“Piss off.” He disconnected the call.

That was unbearable. Just appalling. Atrocious. Flagrant. Dreadful. Grody. Detestable. Noisome. Wait… _Grody_?! Sherlock fisted his hands in his hair with a snarl. Shut up, brain!

Two more days.

He’d have to leave the flat at some point. He couldn’t keep avoiding his writing haunts, or other people, or daylight. He stalked into the kitchen and flicked the kettle on. Oh, good. He was nearly out of coffee too. He slammed the bag on the counter with a huff and drummed his fingers against his lips.

It wasn’t writer’s block.

It wasn’t.

It was something different. A proper distraction. A full on investment in… himself…

His phone chimed pleasantly from the top of his manuscripts and he frowned at it, his hands making fresh coffee without thought. Probably Mycroft again. Though, Mycroft wouldn’t text if he could call. And Lestrade wouldn’t harass him for another two days. Molly knew not to text when he was working. And… And that was nearly the extent of his contact list. Sherlock sighed and poured himself a mug of coffee, the curiosity beginning to itch. He crossed to the table and poked the phone with one finger, lighting the screen and the notification. Oh.

**_Hey, Gorgeous. How’s the work going?_ **

John.

He chewed on his lower lip and debated how to respond. He could leave it a few minutes. An hour or two. Make John wait. Play it coy… Who was he kidding, he’d never last that long. Then perhaps flirty? Something witty? Something… crass? Ugh, he was no good at this! The phone chimed in his hand again.

**_Don’t over think this and say hello?_ **

_Hello, John._

Not exactly top of the line verbosity, but it was better than nothing.

**_Hello._ **

_You already said that._

**_I did, didn’t I._ **

_When are you coming back to London?_

Two more days. He knew it was two more days.

**_Actually. I got back this morning._ **

What?! That was… Perfect. Excellent. Fantastic. Splendid… Unacceptable!

Sherlock rang him before any thoughts to the contrary could creep in. And blurt out a rather curt greeting the moment the line connected. “John!”

A low rasping chuckle game through the receiver. It was lower. Gravelly. Harsh, and equal parts amusement and pain. “Hey there, gorgeous.”

Sherlock frowned. “John, what’s wrong with your voice?”

John cleared his throat and sniffed. He still came across sounding like an aging smoker. “Have I ever told you how much I love Birmingham?”

“No,” Sherlock answered slowly.

“That’s because I don’t.” John huffed a laugh and cleared his throat again. “Just a fun present I picked up in the line of duty.”

“You’re sick,” Sherlock said flatly.

“Mmn,” John hummed. “Well spotted, that. And I sound like a muppet. Hence the texting.”

“I… We can go back to…”

“Mmn, nope.” He coughed lightly and it sounded sore. “I like hearing your voice.”

Sherlock blushed. Then he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. He was a bloody mess. For God’s sake! “You know you gave me a hickey?”

John barked out a sharp, short laugh. “Aware.” His voice cracked and he took a moment to find it again. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but you asked for something to that effect.”

Sherlock muttered a weak assent and sighed. “That’s not entirely what I had in mind.”

He could hear John’s smile through the phone. “Me neither.”

Sherlock groaned. “I suppose you’re too sick for dinner.”

John chuckled and coughed. “I wouldn’t want you to have what I have.”

“I’m never sick,” Sherlock decidedly did not pout.

“Right well, let’s keep it that way.”

“How long until you abandon your noble Hippocratic oath and lift your interaction sanction?”

John hummed in consideration. “Give me until Tuesday?”

“But that’s… four more days!”

“I’ll make it up to you,” John rasped. “I promise.”

“Hmm.” Sherlock worried the edge of his thumb nail. “Something better than a hickey this time, I think.”

John barked out a rough laugh.

 

~o~

 

Sherlock found the next few days a tedious trial, unbearable burden on his limited patience. He bounced between his flat and the bookshop café, the park, the corner of an obscure pub. That last one had been an unmitigated disaster. He wouldn’t be trying that one again. He also became uncharacteristically familiar with taking himself in hand. And… cold showers.

By Monday, he didn’t trust himself in the flat. Being out in public mandated some sort of decorum, decency, propriety. Gentility. Maintaining his dignity in the face of a hardship that… Hardship?! Sherlock grumbled and forced himself to sip his coffee. He’d practically poured the first one down his throat for need of the burning distraction from his other distractions. And he was, ostensibly, trying to work. But it was slow going.

_Her fingers dug into his back, her hips rising to meet his with desperation. “John,” she groaned. She felt his lips curve into a smile as he kissed her, his tongue plunging into her mouth in time with his thrusts…_

It just…

Sherlock wrinkled his nose and glared at his screen. He just… He didn’t like it. There was something about it he just didn’t like. He growled.

“You’ve a typo,” Sherlock jumped at the voice, murmuring low against the curve of his ear. At least he didn’t tip his chair over this time. “And it’s damn near impossible to French kiss someone _and_ smile at the same time.”

“Prove it,” Sherlock huffed out through the grin that was threatening to consume his face. When John chuckled, Sherlock could feel it in his chest, warming him from the inside out.

“Challenge accepted,” John whispered, ghosting his lips along the back of Sherlock’s ear. Sherlock did not whimper. He did not whine. And he did not swallow his own tongue. But he did let out something of a breathy gasp at the nip of teeth before John straightened and made his way to the seat across the table. “Hello.”

“Hi.” It was familiar and novel all at once, and it left Sherlock searching for level ground. “Feeling better?”

John gave him a lop-sided grin. “My voice is back to nearly normal. So thank God for small blessings.” He leaned forward onto his right elbow, propping his chin in his hand. “Now. Tell me how you’ve been.”

Horny. Sherlock sucked in a sharp breath. “Working.”

“Mmn,” John pursed his lips. “Coming along?”

Sherlock narrowed his eyes. Was that a joke? “I-It’s… I have it in hand.”

John’s mouth twitched. “As long as it’s not too hard on you.”

It was a joke. God damn him. “I find I’m rather adept at rising to the occasion.”

“Self-satisfying with your achievements?” John cocked a brow.

“Well…” Sherlock felt the color rising into his face. God this man was incorrigible. “I… Needed something… to… Fill the void.” He chewed on his lip. That was bold, even for him. Maybe too bold. Too far? Too unsubtle?

John’s eyes flashed as he smirked. “Did you now.” He cleared his throat, tracing a purposeless pattern with a fingertip on the tabletop. “Lunch?”

Sherlock blinked. “Not… Dinner?”

John’s face twisted in a complicated flurry of expression. “I have a work thing tonight.”

Ah. Work. Dull. “I… I could… eat?” He winced at how it sounded much more like a question than he’d intended.

“Good.” John gave a quick nod, pushing back from the table and breaking the tension. “I know a sandwich shop nearby. It’s nice out. Thought we could eat in the park.”

Sherlock furrowed his brow, but found himself nodding. “Alright.” He closed his laptop and crammed his belongings into his satchel, standing quickly and at John’s gesture, heading for the door.

“Good,” John set a hand on the small of his back as they emerged from the shop, his voice dropping into a low growl. “I’m starving.”

Sherlock tripped over his own feet. John didn’t miss it; his hand fisting in the back of Sherlock’s shirt, keeping him upright without breaking stride as his face flamed in embarrassment. After a moment, Sherlock tugged his shirt back in place and shot John an irate glare. “You are going to kill me.”

John chuckled. “I have much better plans for you.”

“Promises, promises,” Sherlock huffed. “Where are we going anyway?”

“It’s up a few streets and round the corner,” John gestured vaguely.

“Oh, that place. That one place. The one place on the street with the corner and the sandwiches.”

John giggled. “You know it?”

Sherlock grinned and turned his attention back to the lunch crowds, now milling on the pavements and congesting the crosswalks. Busy. Teeming. Crammed. Jammed. Brimming. He did a double take as he thought he recognized a face in the crowd, but snapped his head to the side at the gentle tug on his sleeve. John was heading off down one of the alleys. “Where are you going?”

“Shortcut,” John bobbed his head, disappearing around the corner.

“Shortcut,” Sherlock muttered, scrambling to catch up. “John?”

He only just cleared the corner and was bowled over, his back thudding against the bricks as John crowded him into the wall, his body firm and warm along Sherlock’s front. “Hello,” John grinned.

“Hi?” Sherlock felt the surprise on his face and immediately tried to curb the expression. “Didn’t we already have our greeting?”

“Mmn,” John’s mouth twisted into something sly. “Not a proper one.”

Oh.

Oh!

When John Watson meant proper, it was certainly not proper in the sense of common decency. He meant thorough. He meant unmitigated, comprehensive, exact, and absolute. And the greeting involved far more tongue than Sherlock would have generally accepted in public. But they were a few feet down an alleyway. And no one would look. And certainly no one else would care. And God it was good. Yes. Good. More. He wrapped his arms around John’s back and pulled him closer.

John groaned and pivoted, putting his own back to the wall and drawing Sherlock down to him. Better. This was better. “Missed me then?”

“Mmn,” Sherlock planted his hands on the wall on either side of John’s shoulders and stooped, bending to find John’s mouth again. His mouth, his lips, his tongue, and oh… Oh, his jaw. His neck. He’d been remiss in ignoring John’s neck.

“Ah, Christ,” John gasped. “My professional career really can’t afford an ASBO,” he complained weakly, tilting his head in spite of his objection.

Sherlock nosed along the exposed neck and jawline. “What about hickies?”

“Ha!”

Sherlock was proud that the laugh he’d drawn out was breathy and strained and distracted. “Mine’s faded too much.”

“Wait, wait, wait.” John planted a hand in the middle of his chest and pushed, holding him at arm’s length and panting. “What about lunch?”

Sherlock growled, “Fuck the sandwiches.”

John’s face lit up with amusement, from the broad grin to the mischief that glittered in his eyes, and Sherlock broke into giggles right along side him. “Sh-Sherlock,” John tried to catch a breath. “No… No fucking the sandwiches.”

Sherlock couldn’t stop the extra few chuckles from escaping as he shifted to lean against the wall beside John. “How about just no fucking sandwiches?”

“Fucking sandwiches? There are places that mustard doesn’t belong.” John giggled again.

Sherlock groaned and scrubbed at his face with both hands. “No. No sandwiches. No lunch. Come back to mine.”

“Oh.” John’s brow arched, and Sherlock sucked in a breath at the expression on his face. “Yeah?”

Sherlock gave him a timid nod. “Please.”

John tucked his chin and took a deep breath. He set his clothes and hair right and pushed off the wall, composed and calm again. Contained save for the dark look he gave Sherlock. “After you.”

If they’d been one foot further from Baker Street, Sherlock was quite certain that he couldn’t have been held responsible for his actions, and given his state of mind, an ASBO was the most likely outcome. As it stood, it took three very distracted attempts to unlock the door; something made far more difficult by the steady and heated look John was giving him from the stoop. And he’d nearly tripped and tumbled to his death on the stairs when John casually commented on the view where he was following Sherlock up.

Sherlock shrugged his satchel off and set it cautiously next to the sofa. He hadn’t been particularly careful with his laptop of late, but it wouldn’t suit to have to purchase another one in the middle of his novel. There was a low rumble of approval from somewhere over his shoulder, “No, no. Don’t get up on my account.”

“Is this more about the view?” Sherlock quirked a brow as he straightened and turned to face John.

“I am certainly not complaining.”

And he blushed again. Damn this fair complexion. In his defense, it was less the compliment and more the image of John Watson, leaning casually against the now shut door, his chin tipped up, his eyes glinting, a cheeky smirk on his face, looking… edible. One of John’s brows slowly inched up in invitation, provocation, implication. And Sherlock actually growled. It was a low sound, hungry sound, deep and base, and it surprised even himself as he practically, well honestly actually, launched himself at John.

John was not surprised.

John was ready.

And apparently both willing and able to turn the tables before Sherlock could blink. And then the door was an integral part of Sherlock remaining upright. And Sherlock really couldn’t complain about the outcome. Partially because John’s thigh was rocking rather firmly against his growing erection. But mostly because any words of objection were lost to the languid stroke of John’s tongue across his own. Stealing them away before they could properly form. And leaving Sherlock with nothing but breathless gasps. And it was better and worse than the moment in the alleyway. Because all pretense had been shed. And any lingering self-consciousness or shred of decency had fled along with cohesive thought. “Oh, Gawd!”

And John Watson was deliberate and methodical in his deconstruction. All-encompassing. Discursive with his attentions. First plundering Sherlock’s mouth, nipping at his lips, tugging on his curls so he could expose neck and ear and jaw to tongue and teeth. Sherlock moaned out a cuss as deft fingers traced the rear seam of his trousers, grabbed a palmful of arse cheek and dragged him into a rut. Every time he thought to hold John, grip him, push him one way or another, a clever flick of his tongue, a sly twist of his hips, an inventive shift of weight put Sherlock on the back foot. And he couldn’t. He just… He couldn’t… He dug his fingers into John’s hair and held on. And John’s voice rumbled against his exposed throat. “Fresh one, I think.”

Sherlock panted. He threw his head back against the door and closed his eyes and held on. “God, please.” The pinch and bloom of pain from somewhere near his collarbone shuddered into his awareness and was immediately drown by the unexpected jolt of John’s hand wrapping around his erection through the fabric of his trousers. Oh. OH! Fuck, fuck, fuck. “FUCK!”

“You have no idea.”

Sherlock sucked in a sharp breath that did nothing for the light-headedness, the room spinning, the heat from each point of contact. And John’s fingers. And his hands. And his… shit. His goddamn mouth… just there… And… Sherlock whined.

“You are so beautiful.”

Sherlock huffed out what little air he had. Because John’s mouth was on his chest. What happened to his shirt? When was that… Oh who… Fuck. No one cares.

“Come on, gorgeous.”

Whatever the sound, it was breathless. Wh-whimper? Mewl? Fu-moan?

Surrender. It was a surrender.

“Sherlock.” John branded his name into Sherlock’s neck, sucked it into his earlobe, bit it into his collarbone.

Oh shit. Oh fuck. He was going to come from this. He was… Oh God, he’d ruin his trousers. Oh… John… Ju-wh-John… too late. His back arched sharply as the orgasm snapped through him. “Huh!”

And then he felt loose. Soft and pliant. And Sherlock let his back slide down the door until his bum hit the floorboards. It was a gentle collapse, slowed by a pair of strong hands on his hips, until he was back eyelevel with John. And his deep blue eyes. And his fucking smug grin. Sherlock huffed out a breath and rested his head against the wood for a long moment.

“You did miss me.”

Sherlock felt the smile curve the corners of his mouth before it even occurred to him to try. “Cocksure,” he murmured, letting his eyes drift closed.

“You were wound tighter than a spring.”

Sherlock hummed out a laugh. “Let the flood gates open…”

John chuckled and ran his palms up Sherlock’s thighs. “Speaking of. _That_ is not going to be comfortable in about two minutes.”

Sherlock blinked his eyes open and furrowed his brow. That. That? What that? John smirked and Sherlock was forced to roll his eyes. Oh. _That_ that. His rather sodden pants and now quite possibly ruined trousers. He heaved a sigh. “You might be right.”

“At some point, Sherlock, you’ll stop questioning me on this.” John stood and held out a hand.

Sherlock chuckled then winced as he was pulled upright. He shifted uncomfortably. Ok. John was right. It was uncomfortable. He cleared his throat. “I um… I think I might just need a quick shower.”

John grinned. “Might you?”

“Mmn,” Sherlock frowned for a moment. “Will you be alright if I…” he waved a hand vaguely at the loo.

“I’m sure I can entertain myself for a few minutes.”

“I-oh. R-right.” He snapped his mouth shut. Then cleared his throat.

John huffed out a laugh and with firm hands on Sherlock’s hips, turned him the direction of the bathroom. “Go on now.” He landed a reassuring, patronizing, undignified, and oddly welcome pat on Sherlock’s bum. “Off with you.”

He did his best not to blush. He did his very best, but it happened anyway. In response, he dropped his shirt on the kitchen floor while en route to the shower. By the time the bathroom door was closed and the taps were on, Sherlock felt only slightly more in control of his constitution. Fucking John Watson. John Watson who kept turning up out of the blue. John Watson who could dismember, decompose, dissect and dissever, deconstruct and destroy Sherlock with a single look. John Watson who was waiting in his sitting room where Sherlock had left him. John Watson who Sherlock had… neglected… again. He let his head thunk against the tiles of the shower wall. Spartan shower then.

Sherlock finished quickly, toweling dry and fetching the soft, flannel pajama bottoms and worn tee shirt he’d shed that morning. He shrugged into the nearest robe and headed back to the sitting room, running a towel over his curls as he went, discarding it on the chair as he strode out of the kitchen. And…

He pulled up short. “John?”

John glanced up from his seat on the couch, one ankle crossed over his knee, a light dusting of color across his cheeks as he lowered the book in his hand. Sherlock caught a glimpse of the dust jacket and knew, he knew right away which one it was. Oh God. It would have to be that one. For a moment, it looked as though John tried to purse his lips at the same time his mouth was trying to twitch into a smile. Then he arched a brow. “I uh… I went ahead an ordered us some delivery.” He cleared his throat. “Should take another twenty minutes or so.”

Sherlock nodded, though it felt like he was agreeing to more than food. “Probably wise. I can’t say I’ve had much beyond coffee today.” He glanced back at the book cradled in John’s lap and tried to judge how many pages into it he was. Couldn’t have just started; he was a good hundred pages in. The shower wasn’t that long.

“Coffee isn’t food, Sherlock.”

“Isn’t it?” he asked innocently, trying to be casual as he inched closer to John.

John set the book on the coffee table with an equally casual air, but the expression on his face was not. “No,” he shook his head. “It’s not.”

So, then, not casual. Coy. Sherlock tucked his upper lip between his teeth and risked another step. “Hmm. Doing a bit of light reading?”

John shrugged. “You’d know it; you wrote it.”

“Did I?” Sherlock did his best not to snatch the book away now that it was within his reach. John held his gaze, but did nothing to hinder him as he slid the novel across the table and stooped to skim the page.

_Wilson growled low in his throat as he felt her body arch against his. He wrapped his arms around her in a fierce embrace, crushing her to his chest. Possessiveness borne of panic left him struggling to keep from ravaging her there on the spot. With a conscious effort, he relaxed his hold on her, slowly easing out of the battle between their tongues. And taking a much needed breath, he pulled back from the kiss._

_“Did that make you feel better?” She smiled and leaned back against the door._

_“A little,” he whispered, feathering a few last kisses across her forehead. “You?”_

_“Mmn,” she sighed. Then she smirked, slowly lowering herself to her knees…_

Oh…. OH… Sherlock felt the blush start before he even reached the meat of the passage. Dear God, the things he wrote. It shouldn’t be so… So… personal for John to read it. Hell, he’d sold millions of copies of this damn book, but… He cleared his throat, blinking at John. Change of topic. Tactical retreat. “How did you know I’d be free for lunch today?”

“You must have deadlines, so you’d be out working. And you’ve never turned down an invitation before.” John shrugged. “Spontaneous or not. Plus, you had a typo in your text.”

“A typo?” Sherlock snapped the book shut and frowned. “There was no typo.”

John shrugged again. “There was.”

Sherlock didn’t huff. And he really didn’t pout. Or bypass the table to loom over John. “Was not!”

John leaned back, spreading his arms across the back of the couch and smirking. Infuriating. “You didn’t even notice it was there, did you? Rather important one, I’d think.”

Sherlock ran through the text in his head. And tried again. And again. “Is this about the smiling and kissing thing? I can change that.”

John bit his lower lip and shook his head slowly. “Nope.”

Not the smiling… And it certainly wasn’t punctuation; he was nothing if not fastidious with his punctuation. And it couldn’t possibly be a problem with his lexicon, particular as it was. “I…” He reran the text. “What? Tell me!”

John tilted his head to the side, watching Sherlock through his lashes. “Remind me. What’s your main character’s name?”

“Wilson.” Sherlock answered quickly. “It’s… J-James Wilson.”

“James.”

“Yes. James. Clearly.” _“John,” she groaned…_ Shit.

A rumbling chuckle bubbled out of John as he knew Sherlock copped it. “Don’t pout,” he murmured, reaching for Sherlock’s hips and tugging him down onto his lap. Sherlock grumbled. Embarrassing. He settled with his knees around John’s hips. What an absurd mistake. His bum nestled on top of John’s thighs. How mortifying. Just discommodious. Inopportune. “Sherlock.” John tipped his chin up with a gentle nudge from his index finger. “It’s flattering. Yeah?” He waited for Sherlock to meet his gaze before that grin reappeared. “It’s nice to be thought of. Besides, isn’t that what editors are for?”

Sherlock shuddered. The idea of Anderson or Donovan needed to make that correction. Disgusting. Disturbing. Horrifying. “Never mention my editors again. Please.”

“Alright,” John laughed. “Fair enough. Fair enough. Now. I believe I promised a demonstration?”

“You did,” Sherlock gave a nod.

“Mmn,” John let his hands wander from Sherlock’s hips, up his arms, to his neck and into his curls. “You just try to smile, hm?” And he tugged Sherlock down to snog him properly.

It was hard to smile when you were rather focused on the feel of someone’s tongue sliding against yours. And it was hard to smile when you were quite convinced that the only oxygen getting to your brain was second hand from someone else’s lungs. And it was definitely hard to smile when that someone managed to vaporize all thought from your head with the low rumble that vibrated against your chest. Sherlock might have been caught up in the kissing enough to forget to smile, but he was attuned enough to the sensation of John’s wandering fingers and stroking palms to notice the very slow, only slightly controlled rock of John’s hips. It wasn’t a rut; it was far too contained, restrained, reserved. It was… composed. And it seemed patently unfair that John had managed to reduce Sherlock to an agitated, over-excited, practically swooning… Not swooning. Sherlock Holmes did not swoon. Eager maybe? Mess. He was a mess around John, while John managed this unflappable self-control. That was unfair. Unjust. Unsporting. Uncalled for. Improper. Inequitable. Inexcusable. Wrong… Cruel… Sherlock had been remiss.

He shifted, letting his lips and tongue trace a wandering path across John’s chin and throat to his ear. John hummed, “See what I mean about the smiling?”

Sherlock pressed his grin into corner of John’s jaw and nipped. “Mmn, you have a point.” It wasn’t just the injustice of it. Sherlock wanted. Not just reciprocation, but he wanted to see John lose that control for once. Let it go. He dropped his weight further onto John’s lap, meeting the small thrust with a firm grind down. And John groaned. And it felt dangerous, a reckless abandon, and agitation, and it felt… powerful. And he thought about that passage. And he knew what he wanted. “But,” he sucked on John’s earlobe and was rewarded with another deep, guttural sound. “There are other things one can do with their mouth?”

“O-oh?” John’s hands had started clenching and unclenching in Sherlock’s robe, barely keeping from gripping his hips. Good thing that. Sherlock managed to shift his weight, slithering from the couch to kneel on the floor, twisting his way effortlessly into the space between John’s knees to run his palms up the firm planes of John’s thighs. “Oh.” John’s pupils blew wide and his eyes a dark navy.

Sherlock managed a smirk, raising a brow in question as he reached for John’s belt. He got a tense, breathless, wordless nod in response and his fingers deftly released the belt and button and then the fly. Then he licked his lips and it sounded like the breath had been punched out of John’s chest. So he hooked his hands under John’s hips and pulled him to the edge of the couch, then tucked his fingers into the waistband of his boxers and trousers and tugged them down to the tops of his thighs.

“Sherlock…”

Oh.

Oh lovely. This was fantastic. “Yes?” He was… well he wasn’t bad at giving head. Then again, he wasn’t exactly terribly experienced. And yet, he spent hours upon hours considering and documenting imaginary versions of the same thing. And John had been reading the same. And even at the thought of it, the implication of what was to come had John hard. Then again, for how on edge Sherlock had been… “I’ve been remiss.”

John sucked in a sharp breath as Sherlock gripped his cock and gave a firm stroke. “Oh God.” Heated. That was a truly heated stare he received. And it shuddered down his spine in a pleasant tingle. And he definitely needed to know how John Watson tasted. He leaned in and swirled his tongue around the head of John’s cock. “Fuck, Sherlock.”

“Mmn, that is the idea.” He flattened his tongue and took his time tasting the testing the changing textures from the base of his prick to the tip. Good. It was good. But the tension in John’s body, that he was clearly struggling to hold himself still, that was fantastic. And here he was, still fully dressed and on his knees, and he’d only bothered to free John from his trousers and pants; that was just a little bit filthy, and fucking brilliant. Yeah, this was something he could do. So he did, wrapping his hand around the base of John’s cock and sucking him down as far as he dared on a first pass.

He knew what he liked, and he knew what was considered ‘right,’ and using that as a launch point, he let the sounds and twitches and cusses and strains guide his mouth and hands and tongue. When it seemed like John wasn’t able to keep from rocking his hips, Sherlock slid a shoulder under one of John’s thighs and splayed a palm across the slight paunch of John’s tummy, under his shirttails, on top of heated skin. It was a nod to age, the small collection of fat over muscle that flexed and tensed under his fingertips. Softness belying strength.

When John’s hand dropped to the back of his head, fingers winding into his curls, he braced himself for the force, the tugging and pushing and twisting and demand. And when it didn’t come, Sherlock risked a glance up. And then he wondered if it was physiologically possible for him to come, untouched, so soon after his last orgasm, from the sight alone. John Watson looked wrecked. Debauched. Undone and wanton. Bracing for impact. The hand that wasn’t stroking through Sherlock’s hair was white-knuckled clenched in the leather of the sofa just over his head. Grounding? Holding? Clutching to the furniture as if Sherlock was trying to tear him out of the room. Maybe he was. But John’s face was exquisite. His eyes shut tight even as his mouth had dropped open. Small, near soundless words of praise, moans, gasps, and what was probably a slurred attempt at Sherlock’s name were spilling successively with increasing desperation. It was still quiet, and contained, but raw and radiant, and it wasn’t quiet enough. Sherlock hollowed his cheeks and let the tip of John’s cock push past his soft palate. And then he hummed.

“Sh-sh,” John choked out a sharp cry and tried to tug him off. It was a warning, he supposed. But it ignored the entire point of this exercise. Sherlock eased back until he was caressing the slit with the tip of his tongue and stayed. Waiting. Waiting for John to watch. And when John managed to open his eyes again, managed to look down, managed to see, Sherlock sucked him back down and absolutely relished in the instant taut strain that rocked through John’s body.

Oh that was worth it. It was worth the slight discomfort of having his hair tugged at the end. It was worth the sputter when he wasn’t quite ready for the exact volume of semen that hit the back of his throat. It was worth it for the ache in his knees. Because John Watson slumped onto the couch bonelessly, and his chest heaved as though he’d run a marathon, and his hair was sticking out odd angles as though he’d had his hand fisted in it at some point. But more than anything, John Watson was staring at Sherlock as though he could set him on fire. The hand that had been wrapped in Sherlock’s hair slid down to cup Sherlock’s jaw. “Jesus,” John breathed. “Your fucking mouth.”

Sherlock would have blushed if it were possible. But he knew he was flushed out to his ears already. He was watching John’s mouth again. Watching as his tongue flicked out over his lips. Watching as the corner flicked into what could have been a smirk if it had lasted more than the blink of an eye. Watching as John’s thumb started to stroke over the boundary of Sherlock’s lower lip. And Sherlock shuddered.

“Get up here,” John growled. “Right fucking now.”

And later, he might be a little embarrassed by how quickly and gracelessly he complied. But that was for later. Right now, he was perfectly happy to climb back up on to John’s lap and be rewarded for his efficiency with a deep, and filthy kiss. And when he thought to pull back, just to breathe, just because he was feeling a bit dizzy, a bit woozy, John let him. But only far enough that he could sneak a hand between them, dip under the waistband of Sherlock’s flannel pajamas and pants, and circled his aching erection.

“Fucking marvel.”

Sherlock groaned and ducked back down, trying to taste the words on John’s tongue.

“Gorgeous.”

He screwed his eyes shut, resting his forehead against John’s, whimpering as John’s grip changed, tightened, stroking with long, sure pulls.

“Brilliant.”

Sherlock whined as John’s mouth shifted, sucking on his lower lip, finding his chin, his jaw, his neck, his ear.

“Again,” John nipped at whatever skin he could find. “Sherlock. Again.”

The orgasm washed over him, hot and sparking out to the tips of his fingers. And the pleasant, sedate lethargy left in its wake had him sagging against John. Eventually they would have to get up. Eventually they’d have to clean up or they’d be stuck together. Eventually the takeaway was going to arrive and they’d have to answer the door. But that was all… Eventually.

“Sherlock?”

“Hmm,” he pressed into the warm sensation of fingers running through is hair. It was soothing. Hypnotic. Mesmerizing. He could fall asleep like this.

“Do you own a tux?”

 

~o~

 

Sherlock tugged at his bowtie, untying it and retying it for the third time. It sat perfectly at his throat, but he still scowled at the reflection. Black tie gala. It wasn’t that he didn’t look like he’d fit in. Sherlock was well aware that he looked born to the upper class, and having a good tailor made it all the easier to belong. It was the conversation, the glad-handing, the false familiarity, and social subtext. It was boring. It was dull and small-minded and tedious and… It was Mycroft’s forte, not his.

But… John had asked.

And Sherlock was woe to say no to John. And the idea of John in a tux. Well, that was rather irresistible in theory. Even if that required attending a gala. Even then… And only for an hour. That’s what John had said. He’d go for the start. He’d promised to attend ages ago. He’d be seen, do all the happy happy smiling, and he’d leave a ticket at the door for Sherlock. One hour. Then they could go.

One hour.

This is why he didn’t do book launches, or signings, or charity events, or any of Mycroft’s upper society club nights. Sherlock ran a hand through his hair then quickly righted the mess he’d made of it. He could do an hour. And that’s what he repeated to himself as he rechecked his cufflinks, donned his jacket and coat, and found his way out to the street, hailing a taxi. And he repeated it for the duration of the ride there. And again as he crossed the faux red carpet, and again as he met with security at the door, and again after he gave his name, and was allowed in, and relinquished his coat to the check, and braced himself, and strode into the ballroom.

One hour.

Oh God.

This was going to be torture.

The noise hit him first, then the colors as he took in the space. People in black tie. People in bright dresses. People talking. People shouting to be heard. People playing music up by the stage. People in uniform… Well, John had warned him. Something about wounded veterans, something about doctors and rehab. One hour. He flushed nervously and began looking for John. There were too many people. All the men in similar colors. And John was shorter. Harder to find in the crowded space.

“Hey there, Gorgeous.”

Sherlock felt some of the tension drop from his shoulders.

“Come here often?”

“Hello, sailor.” He felt the smile pulling at the corners of his mouth as he turned.

“Well don’t you clean up nicely,” John smirked. “And it’s ‘soldier.’ I didn’t get shot defending this country in the desert to be called ‘sailor.’”

Sherlock frowned. Soldier. Soldier?! His eyes swept John as his brow furrowed. Soldier. How in the hell had he missed that one? John was a soldier. John would have been in uniform. John might still have his uniform. But he wasn’t wearing a mess. Wouldn’t he wear a mess? But that tuxedo was something else. John Watson in a tuxeudo. Wait was… _Was_. He’d been shot. Someone had SHOT John Watson! Wait. Where did he get shot? How did Sherlock not know this? How did he miss this?

“Alright?” John asked, a benign smile sliding onto his face. One that wasn’t quite convincing. One that lacked his normal amusement and brashness.

No. He was not alright. He was most definitely not alright. Not with John Watson looking sinfully put together in what was clearly a custom tux. And he certainly was not picturing John Watson in uniform. John Watson in action. Or in mess. Or with a gun. Or getting shot. Or bleeding. Or… “Afghanistan or Iraq?”

“Afghanistan,” John said easily, cocking his head to the side and giving Sherlock a long look. “Oh. You didn’t know?”

“How would I have known?” Sherlock was not pouting. He really wasn’t.

John’s lower lip disappeared between his teeth as he tried to hide a smile. “Oh, I don’t know.” He glanced around the room. “Veterans Gala,” he offered with a shrug. “That I had to go to. Just thought that might have tipped you off there.”

“You’re a doctor,” Sherlock was still not pouting. “You could be here in a medical capacity.”

“Mmn,” John gave an unconvinced nod. “You’re not imagining me in my uniform then?” Sherlock felt his face flush scarlet and John’s smile broke into a lecherous grin. “You are. Interesting.”

“It’s not interesting. It…” Sherlock cleared his throat and corrected his posture. “It just is.”

John stepped closer, putting his shoulder just behind Sherlock’s and resting his palm on the small of his back. “If it makes you feel any better,” he murmured. Sherlock felt what had been the receding color return to his cheeks as John purred in his ear. “I’m currently picturing you not in that tux.”

Sherlock bit back what was certainly about to be an embarrassing noise and pressed back into the hand. “You are definitely trying to kill me.”

John’s thumb moved in a slow circle, smoothing across Sherlock’s spine through the fabric of his jacket and shirt. “I thought I made it clear that keeping you is a much better plan.”

Sherlock sighed. “You say that. But then…”

John stiffened. And at a glance, Sherlock could see the lines of his shoulders and back draw into attention. Only for a moment. Just the blink of an eye, and John’s posture was casual, the polite and easy smile back on his face. Sherlock scanned the room, but couldn’t pick out what or who had caught John’s eye. Everyone looked… Basically the same. And John’s focus was casting a wide net.

“Everything… Okay?”

John tipped his head up and flashed a toothy grin. “Have you ever seen wolves hunt, Sherlock?”

Well that was a non-sequitur if he’d ever heard one. What an… odd question. “N-no,” he kept his voice low and conversational to match the tone John had used. “Should I have?”

“Probably not,” John raised a brow and scanned the entire room with ease. “The thing about wolves is they’re coursing predators. They’re incredibly effective in packs. And it’s never the one you can see that you have to worry about; it’s the three you don’t.”

Sherlock frowned. “What?”

“Listen,” John clapped him on the back and smiled. “Do me a favor? The lads that planned this, not me now, but…” He sighed. “They decided to be incredibly economical on alcohol front.”

“Not an open bar?”

“Oh no, it’s open. It’s just shite. Like, absolute rubbish. It’s not even worth the cost of the free drink.”

Sherlock chuckled. He’d been to galas like this before. “All the money siphoned off for charity?”

“That’s the idea,” John huffed out a laugh. “But look. Just. Don’t drink any of it, yeah?”

Sherlock raised a brow and fixed John with a rather incredulous look. “Don’t drink? Have you seen where we are?”

John smirked. “It hasn’t escaped my notice. Doesn’t change the fact that I wouldn’t even use any of it as an antiseptic. Spare your liver, and I’ll take you out for a proper drink in half an hour.”

“Out?”

“Or in. For a nightcap.”

Sherlock blushed. “Right. Don’t drink the alcohol.”

“Spare your taste buds.” John’s free hand lifted to tweak Sherlock’s bowtie before smoothing down the front of his shirt. “And mine.” He winked.

Sherlock swallowed. Ok. Right. Ok. Yes. Because… John would taste it on Sherlock’s tongue later. Yes. Good. Ok. That was a great reason.

“Now, I need to see a man about a horse. Don’t you wander off.” John patted his chest as the other hand surreptitiously slipped from the small of Sherlock’s back to pinch his bum.

Sherlock sucked in a sharp breath and tried to glare, but he knew it instantly fell short. John’s amusement was brazen as he headed off into the crowd, and Sherlock tried to rally any sense of decorum to keep from following after and making him pay for that. Then again, watching John Watson walk away was not exactly a hardship. Except it was. And when the throngs of people swallowed John’s figure, Sherlock sighed and found a pillar near the back of the ballroom that looked in need of his support.

He passed the time with people watching. Thinking about how he’d work them in and out of his current storyline. How he’d introduce them. The legless Private and his Geordi wife with the catastrophic business plan. The Major and her husband with a mortgage and three cats but no kids. The pair of doctors that were attempting to conceal an affair. How he’d kill them off… It probably said something unpleasant about him that this was how he spent his free time, but people were fascinating, unless you actually had to interact with them.

“Sir?”

Sherlock waved the waiter off with a flick of his hand. “No thank you.” He wondered how many of these people knew John. How many John knew. Clearly not the same thing. That one might have served with John. That one could have met him in London. That one could be working with him now. Endless possibilities. But which ones would suit his story?

“Sir?”

Sherlock tamped down the urge to roll his eyes. Another waiter. Different one. Clearly. But they were circulating so frequently. “No, I’m quite alright.”

“They’ll be doing the toasts in a moment, sir. If you’d like a glass for that?”

Sherlock narrowed his eyes. Oh. Nearly everyone in the room had a glass in hand. And the trays of champagne were far outnumbering the other drinks. He sighed. “Fine. Thank you.” He plucked a glass from the full tray and the waiter disappeared. Good. He wondered who the highest-ranking officer in the room was. There was the Major in her mess, still serving then. A handful of Lieutenants. The Sergeant Major trying his luck with one of the young waitstaff. Oh, there was a Colonel over there, stuck in conversation. He took a sip of the champagne.

Oh God, John had been right. It was downright awful. He tried to find anyone that could outrank the Colonel. No. Didn’t seem to be the type of affair to draw the Generals. Pity that. He squinted at someone on the far side of the room. Did they look familiar? No. They’re not. Must have one of those faces. He took another sip and wrinkled his nose. So Colonel it is. Who was still stuck in conversation with someone Sherlock couldn’t see, because the Colonel was a mountain of a man and eclipsed even the smallest glimpse of his company.

Was it hot in here? It was as if someone had turned up the heating. Terrible idea in a crowded room really. He tugged at his collar and leaned heavily against the pillar. He and the pillar were going to be good friends by the end of this. He patted the cool marble and tipped his head to rest against it. So… Colonel… And… Friend. Maybe if he stared really really hard, the Colonel would move. He swallowed thickly and took another sip of the champagne. And… Ah! Finally! The hulking thing in the thing moved a bit and… Oh. John. Sherlock stifled a giggle. No wonder he couldn’t see John behind that guy, person. John looked positively small next to him. And that thought made him warm. And he smiled. And John’s eyes flicked Sherlock’s direction.

For a moment, Sherlock thought John would miss him. Pass him by in the sea of tuxeudos. And that made him sad. And… Oddly light-headed. But John found him. And John looked at him. And locked his gaze. And that made him feel better. Like soft. And warm. And the room had this fuzzy edge to it. And John’s eyes went wide. And that… surely… not right… Oh, he really didn’t feel… right… And he felt himself slip a bit down the pillar. And that’s when John’s face twisted into a look of horror. And… That… was… that… oh…

And the last thing Sherlock thought as he slipped into unconsciousness was that ‘oh’ was a terrible last thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the record, all excerpts from "Sherlock's books" are horribly plagiarized from stuff I've written that will NEVER be posted... I won't delete my old stuff, but wow, that's a rabbit hole I never want to see again.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Based on an AU prompt I have long since misplaced... something like: **I’m a writer and your my character and wtf how the heck did you just literally climb out of my first draft?**
> 
> _“James?”_  
>  _They were moving again. Slowly. But moving. “What, Sherlock?”_  
>  _“We should talk.”_  
>  _The huff of laughter from beneath most of his weight was unexpected. “What about?”_  
>  _It grew significantly darker. Heavier. “I think you should know that I’m seeing someone else.”_  
>  _“Oh are you?”_  
>  _“Mmn,” he tripped, but never was in danger of falling. “His name is John. And you look alike. But I’m seeing him. And I like him. And he kisses like heaven.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brief warning: this chapter is a bit... dark... I don't want to spoil it, but there's violence and injury and yes the champagne was drugged and that has certain repercussions.
> 
> I'm still aiming for 5 chapters on this one. I think I might need to post my notes as an appendix at the very end, because the notes for this are hilarious... As are my beta comments which tend to be highly encouraging keyboard smashes.
> 
> Sorry this took so long. I am... up to my eyeballs in real life shit right now, and writing has been a challenge for many many reasons. Thank you for sticking around!

Oh.

Uhn.

O-ow.

He groaned. Oh god, his head hurt. Ow. If his brain would start working or… not… be stuck in molasses… Or stuffed with cotton wool… Or… Oh God he was going to throw up. Oh.

And there was that thought again. Oh.

Something like a thud sounded a few feet away. Thud? No… that wasn’t right… Smack? No…

“You are making a mistake.”

Oh god everything was so loud. Too loud.

“Me? I’m making a mistake?” There was a loud tutting noise. “Doesn’t look that way from here.” The thudding, smacking, striking sound repeated.

He flinched. That was really near him. That was really, really nearby. This was the worst hangover ever. Never drinking again. Wasn’t even supposed to be drinking. Ow. He tried to cradle his head in his hands. Except… His hands wouldn’t move. That… was bad. Ok. Ok. That was really bad. He swallowed against the urge to vomit again. Didn’t make sense.

“Don’t.” That sounded like John.

“Don’t?” That one was definitely not John.

Ok. Ok. He forced his eyes open. And immediately hissed at the pain from even the dim lighting. Maybe that was a mistake. Because now it hurt and didn’t make sense.

“Ah, Sleeping Beauty is going to join us.”

“Do not.”

Sherlock yelped as a hand fisted in his hair and yanked his head up and back.

“Don’t touch him.”

Sherlock shuddered at the tone of John’s voice. Cold and calculated and calm and… terrifying. Everything was terrifying. And he couldn’t seem to get his brain to work. Or his hands. He pulled, but only managed to provoke deep darts of pain from his shoulders and wrists.

“Watson, you should know by now. It’s not a matter of if I touch, but when.”

That… That did not sound good. That sounded bad. The hand in his hair stroked down the back of his neck and across his jaw. And that was wrong. The touch was so wrong that his stomach twisted and he jerked himself away. And the movement made his head swim and… Oh god he was going to vomit.

Pain exploded across the side of his face and he cried out as he lurched sideways, the chair tipping dangerously before a hand on his shoulder righted it. He heaved once, but nothing came up and Sherlock wasn’t sure if that was a blessing or a curse.

“I’m not entirely sure what you hope to achieve by assaulting my date.”

Sherlock forced his eyes open, blinking to ease the watery blur into something interpretable. He still had on his shoes… That’s good. No. Focus. Tied to a chair? It didn’t make sense. Nothing made sense. God his face hurt. Where the hell were they?

“Aren’t you?”

“He’s just my plus one tonight, Cyr. He doesn’t know anything.”

“Doesn’t he?”

He risked it; he glanced at John, at the space that John’s voice was coming from. No… Nope. It didn’t make sense. John was bleeding. In his tux, minus his jacket and bowtie, bleeding. Also tied to a chair. Bleeding. No. Stop. Focus! He blinked and looked up again. John was… yes, ok, yes, bleeding. But he was angry. Furious. Irate. Enraged. Outraged? Incensed. And instead of hot-tempered rage, he looked like icy, still, composed wrath.

“I should have killed you in Berlin.”

Sherlock shuddered again, the chilled tone of John’s words mirroring the tightness in his glare.

“Shoulda, woulda, coulda.” The voice came from directly behind him. “You know who his brother is.”

Oh fuck. Oh shit, fuck, bollocks, sodding hell. An overwhelming sense of panic flooded through him as he jerked against whatever was binding his wrists. It didn’t help. A large palm wrapped around his throat and squeezed, pulling his head up and back.

“I think red is a good color on him. Don’t you, John?”

“I swear to God, Cyr. Don’t do it.”

Fingers tugged at his bowtie and freed the first two buttons of his shirt.

“Red. And black and blue, maybe.”

“Sherlock.”

The pressure around his neck increased, forcing his head to the side. And he whimpered.

“Sherlock, look at me.”

He knew he was panicking, his breath coming in small sips around the pressure on his airway. But there was nothing he could do to stop it. Nothing made sense. And John… John gave him a level stare. Even. Calm. Maybe kind. Something trustworthy. Something solid.

“You’re going to be fine, Sherlock,” John said steadily. “Everything is going to be fine.”

And he believed him.

Then he felt the sharp stab in the side of his neck, heat burning outward and upward. The room tilted. His vision swam. And the hand on his throat disappeared as he doubled over with a groan. Oh God. He was definitely… He retched and vomited on the floor as the vertigo set in.

“You are a dead man, Cyr.”

“Be quiet, John. I’m busy.”

“I’m going to kill you.”

“That’s going to be difficult while you’re cuffed to a chair, John.”

“Slowly, I think. I’m going to kill you slowly.”

“Shut up.”

“I’m going to take my time too.”

“I said, Shut up!”

Sherlock sucked in a breath and tried to pull his head up properly. It didn’t work too well. Kinda rolled on his shoulders. That was fine. Everything was fine. The two, unfocused everythings were probably fine.

“Maybe I’ll break a few of your bones first. Start with your hand.”

“Shut the fuck up!”

“I will make sure you live just long enough to regret doing that.”

“If you don’t shut up, I will come over there and make you!”

“Put up or shut up, Cyr.”

The two of everything seemed to phase in and out of focus through a fog. And it was slow. The thinking was slow. Fuzzy. Woozy. That was it. He felt… woozy. And… hot… and… sick… again. He retched. And why… Why with the thing… What was James Wilson doing here? Sick. That… he must be having a fever dream. Or hallucination. And… Who is this guy? Big guy. Broad back. Heading over to… “Oh!”

Sherlock physically recoiled as one large fist struck James Wilson across the face. Wait. He’d been the one to shout as well. That was strange. Big rounded on him and stuck a finger in his face so close that he may have gone a bit cross-eyed as he pulled away. Smoke.

“You’ll get your turn!”

Wilson spat on the floor. “Oi! Cyr! You know what your problem is?”

It smelled like smoke.

The big guy swung back around. “I’m starting to think it’s you!”

Not cigarette smoke, but smoldering, burning, building stuffs…

Wilson grinned and his face looked wrong. Fuzzy. Odd. Menacing. “There isn’t a restraint that can hold a properly motivated man.”

“The fuck does that mean?!”

Sherlock recoiled again, this time as James’ left fist collided with big guy’s jaw, the entire pitch of his hips and shoulders surging from the chair behind the blow and driving the uppercut with brutal ferocity. And before Sherlock could blink, Wilson swung the chair into big guy’s back, knocking his staggering form to the ground at Sherlock’s feet. And maybe the sound Sherlock made was a squawk. And maybe the sound from the body was an odd gurgle.

“Sherlock?”

Things in the room were moving too fast for him to follow. It was all blurry. All… fuzzy. And kinda warm.

“Hey, Sherlock. Look at me.”

James looked cross. No worried. But cross. And worried. And his hands were on Sherlock’s face. And that was nice.

“Alright?”

“Smells like burning.” His voice felt weird. Slurred a bit. Rough.

“That,” James frowned at the body sprawled on the floor. “Is because this building is on fire.”

“Oh.” Sherlock sighed. That should sound bad. But maybe if he just…

“Sherlock!”

He pulled his head up. Where?

“I need you to stay awake, yeah?”

Oh. Behind him. He leaned back in the chair, twisting to rest his forehead against James’ temple.

“Let me just get these off of you, and I’ll get you out of here.”

“Mmn.” He nodded. His head felt heavy. Nice to rest it here.

“Never took you for a swooner,” James muttered. “You’d be pissed at yourself if you could see this.”

“Not a swooner,” Sherlock pouted. Then his hands came free and he was headed for the floor.

“Nope.”

Strong arm around his waist. Shoulder tucked under his arm. And he was standing so quickly the room rotated and tilted again. And his entire weight dropped onto James Wilson.

“Come on, Sherlock. We’ve places to be.”

“Oh no.”

“Alright?” His weight was shifted and they were moving slightly forward.

“I’m the Bond girl…” No wait. He was going to get sick again. No. Just woozy. James chuckled and it felt like an agreement. Sherlock tried to frown at him, but James was looking away.

“You’re a right femme fatale. All legs and pale skin.” The arm around his waist tightened as he dropped his forehead against James’ shoulder. This was a nice place. Quiet and dark. And soft. And smelled good. Not like the smoke. Smelled… like John…

The loud bang was as shocking as it was disorienting and his knees gave out for a second. Dizzy. Spinning. Going to vomit. Don’t vomit on James. And he muffled a small sound of distress in the collar of James’ shirt. But then there was a hand on his cheek. Petting. Soothing.

“You’re ok. Come on. You’re ok. Let’s get you out of here.”

Maybe there was actually smoke. Because everything was so foggy. And heavy. “James?”

They were moving again. Slowly. But moving. “What, Sherlock?”

“We should talk.”

The huff of laughter from beneath most of his weight was unexpected. “What about?”

It grew significantly darker. Heavier. “I think you should know that I’m seeing someone else.”

“Oh are you?”

“Mmn,” he tripped, but never was in danger of falling. “His name is John. And you look alike. But I’m seeing him. And I like him. And he kisses like heaven.”

“This is the drugs talking.”

“No, no…”

“Sherlock!” The shake woke him. “Do not pass out on me!”

“I like you James. I do.”

“That’s nice, Sherlock.”

“But John is better than you. I’m sorry. It’s true.”

“Why is that, Sherlock?”

Oh. The cool blast of fresh air was lovely. And comforting. And freeing. “Maybe it is the drugs.”

“Stay with me here, Sherlock. Just another minute, yeah?”

“I can’t feel my nose…”

“Sherlock?”

Or fingers…

“Sherlock!”

Or legs… or… or… oh…

 

~o~

 

Oh.

Uhn.

O-ow.

He groaned.

God, how much had he had to drink last night?

He swallowed heavily. Oh good; he’d been sick at some point. Whatever he’d had, it wasn’t just one kind of alcohol. And given the way his head was pounding, he hadn’t done anything sensible prior to passing out, like drinking water or having toast or not consuming such a ridiculous amount of alcohol in the first place.

He groaned again, pressing his cheek into the pillow. Even without opening his eyes, he could tell it was already bright out. Too bright. And in spite of what must have been the hour, he didn’t feel at all rested. Horrible dreams and restlessness and drunken stupor did not lead to any form of restitution. His head hurt. His face hurt. His arms hurt. His muscles hurt. God, even his toenails hurt. Never drinking again.

He took a deep, steadying breath.

Oh.

It smelled nice. It smelled like… John. He hummed and buried his face in the soft pillow. Wait… This… This wasn’t his pillow. He blinked his eyes open to see the clean, white cotton sheets. This wasn’t his bed. He flipped onto his back with a speed he instantly regretted and squinted at the room. This wasn’t his room. Oh God. This wasn’t his flat. His stomach gave a tight heave and he tried to breathe through the nausea. Ok. Ok. Not his room. So where…?

The bedroom was Spartan. Austere. Simple in its unembellished state. White sheets. White duvet. Dark hardwood floors. Dresser. Wardrobe. Nightstand. But every surface was starkly unadorned. No clock. No pictures. No knick-knacks. No clutter or papers or books or clothes scattered about. Pristine. Orderly. And the gauzy light filtering through the curtains reflected off of the blank space to amplify the brightness. It made his head hurt more. But it smelled like John. And that was dangerously comforting. Particularly when he realized he wasn’t wearing his own clothes.

Ok. Right. Ok. He forced himself to breathe through the nausea and swing his legs over the side of the bed. He pressed his palms against his eyes and groaned. Jesus, his face really hurt. With a great deal of caution, he rose to his feet, waiting for the spinning to subside before daring to move away from the relative safety of the bed. A few unsteady steps further and he’d made it to the door and his head felt as though it was clearing. A little.

The next room was awash in brilliant daylight in a way highly incompatible with London, and Sherlock groaned. Clean and glossed surfaces reflected the light around the room in a manner similar to the bedroom. Dark wood and white walls. And lots of flat surfaces. Lots of light bouncing around. He closed his eyes and rested his forehead against the doorjamb to gather himself.

“Sherlock?”

“Mmn.” It was a hum that bordered the affirmative and negative and it rattled his brain with the vibrations. Frankly, sound was probably bad. And the way his throat rasped around the single noise wasn’t terribly promising. Had he been smoking last night?

“How’s the head?”

He let out a bit of a whimper. An apt summary really. Thankfully, he couldn’t detect even a hint of amusement in John’s voice. He sounded concerned. Kindly concerned. No malice. “Were we smoking last night?”

He could hear John shift, just the brush of cotton, bare feet on hardwood. “Did we… Smoke?” It was oddly guarded. “I’m not quite sure how to answer that question.”

“Preferably honestly,” Sherlock grumbled, rocking his head against the wood to crack an eye open in John’s general direction. “I…” Sherlock blinked. “I…” He furrowed his brow and gave his head a shake. That didn’t make sense. “John?” Bruises. Multiple. Purple. Swollen. Angry. Bruises. How?

“Hey,” John started gently.

“Wh-what…” His stomach dropped and it was a desperate battle between his body’s desire to collapse and the urge to vomit.

“No!” And just as he felt himself tip, a pair of arms wrapped around his back. He didn’t hit the floor. At least, not right away. “You have got to stop doing that to me,” John murmured. Then he was sliding gently to sit with his back firmly against a wall and the cool wooden floor beneath his legs. He distantly heard taps come on and shut off. “You had to be a swooner.”

He jumped as the damp sensation brushed along his brow and fought against the urge to keep his eyes firmly closed against everything outside. “Not a swooner,” he muttered.

John hummed and continued to sweep the dampened flannel across his brow, down his cheeks, under his chin. “Just tell me if you’re going to get sick. I’ll fetch a bucket.”

Sherlock forced a small smile and shook his head cautiously. “No, I think that moment has passed.”

“Good. There’s nothing worse when you’ve already emptied your gut.”

He sighed as the spinning settled. The rhythmic sweep of John’s hands becoming more like petting than anything else. It felt nice. Soothing. Calming. Pacifying.

“Alright?”

“Before I try that again, can I just confirm that I wasn’t hallucinating and you have some rather distinct and blatant bruises on your face?”

The cloth disappeared. “Amongst other places,” he answered softly, fingers returning to stroke through his hair.

He blinked his eyes open. “I’m confused.”

John’s brow furrowed as he gave Sherlock a speculative appraisal. After a moment, he must have found what he was looking for; his mouth drew into a firm line and he gave a single nod. “We should… talk.” A complicated twitch of expression and pain flit over his face before he eased back onto his hunkers and pushed to stand. “Maybe somewhere more comfortable though. I can’t stay on the ground. My knees are just…” He flushed and gave an embarrassed shrug. “Come on, up you get.”

Sherlock spared the extended hand a quick glance. Bruised. John’s knuckles were bruised and abraded and there were deep discolorations ringing the wrist where it peeked from the cotton sleeve of the worn tee-shirt. The implication made Sherlock shudder.

“I’ve had worse,” John gave him a wry smile that only worried Sherlock more. But he accepted John’s hand and the tug to his feet. “Couch?” John tilted his head the direction of the leather monstrosity near the windows. “I’ll just… Let me… I could use a cuppa and I’m sure you could too.”

He nodded. Tea actually sounded… Perfect right now. The sofa was deceptively comfortable, and he felt like he was sinking into the cushions. It shouldn’t have been surprising; it had looked welcoming enough. But then, the whole room had that subtle air of sterility, fresh out of the packaging, that if there’d still been tags on the furniture, he wouldn’t have been shocked. That being said, furniture was not the priority thought buzzing around his mind right now. The problem was, there were too many thoughts. Too many questions. And an awful lot of blank space. “What happened to my clothes?”

Well that was an awkward opening gambit. John raised a brow as he placed a tray carefully on the coffee table. Clearly he agreed. “Getting cleaned,” he said cautiously.

“Oh.”

“Here.” John pressed a small glass of something thick and green into his hand. “It doesn’t look that great, but it tastes better than it looks and it will do wonders for your stomach.”

He sniffed it. It didn’t smell like anything in particular, just a vague blend of fruits. “It’s green.”

The corner of John’s mouth twitched. “Yeah.” He picked up his own glass of the same and settled in the middle of the couch. Close without crowding. Close enough that Sherlock could see the split in his lip, the swelling that would have been a proper shiner if half an inch lower on his brow, the abrasion on his cheek, the deep purple along his jaw. Without really thinking, he gingerly skimmed the darkest bruise with the tips of his fingers. John closed his eyes, holding himself still through the contact. Then he sighed. “Sherlock, what do you remember from last night?”

He frowned. Last night… He certainly remembered getting dressed; he’d collected his tux and then had a good long wank in the shower before bothering with the formal attire. Then… Taxi to the gala, John in a tux – would be hard pressed to forget that… And then… The vague impression of working on one of his books… God, he had a headache. “The champagne was terrible,” he said finally.

It startled a genuine huff of amusement from John before his expression collapsed into something more serious. “Yeah. It was. That’s why I told you not to drink any of it.”

“I…” Sherlock squinted at John. Really looked at him. John Watson in a tux. John Watson with bruises from a fight and… Why couldn’t he shake the image of James Wilson from his mind? _His name is John. And you look alike._ He tilted his head. “Why?”

John shifted against the cushion and replaced his glass on the tray. “Why what?”

_Spare your taste buds… And mine._ “Why did you tell me not to drink it?”

He watched the muscle in John’s jaw tense. “I… Had my doubts about the integrity of the refreshments…”

Sherlock felt his face pull into an uncomfortable grimace; that was the most vague and double-meaning and unclear and ambiguous and, and dangerous… He toyed with the cuff of his borrowed shirt, the sleeves were too loose to stay scrunched at his elbows and it seemed almost odd that they reached his wrists… And covered the faint ring of bruising there… Wait. Wait. No. Why did he have bruises on his wrists?!

“Sherlock, look at me,” John said steadily. _You’re going to be fine, Sherlock…_ John’s expression was strained. Taut. Apprehensive and concerned. And it must have been a nervous tic when his tongue rolled over his lower lip, but Sherlock watched it with fascination before meeting John’s gaze. And he struggled to label the exact shade of blue he found. Brandeis. Prussian. Sapphire. Indigo. “Sherlock.” Cornflower. Azure. Cerulean. Lapis lazuli. “What do you remember?”

_Hey, Sherlock. Look at me… Alright?_ “I…” He rubbed nervously at the side of his neck, flinching when he found the tender patch near his ear. “I don’t…” _You’re ok. Come on. You’re ok... Let’s get you out of here._ “I… Don’t know,” he admitted finally.

John blew out a heavy breath. “Right.”

“I don’t…” No. Get it together, Sherlock. You are an author. A linguist. Use your words. “I have hazy impressions of a few things, but I’m finding it difficult to…” He gestured vaguely.

John nodded slowly. Something in his expression changed. Tightened the lines around his eyes. Steeling himself. “That’s because you were drugged.”

Drugged.

Oh.

OH! Fuck.

_I think you should know that I’m seeing someone else…_

_Don’t touch him..._

_Smells like burning…_

_Do not pass out on me!_

_I like him. And he kisses like heaven…_

_I will make sure you live just long enough to regret doing that…_

_John is better than you. I’m sorry. It’s true…_

_Come on, Sherlock. We’ve places to be…_

_I’m the Bond girl…_

_Stay with me here…_

_Not a swooner…_

_You’re going to be fine, Sherlock. Everything is going to be fine…_

“Sherlock?”

Drugged.

He jumped at the light contact across the back of his hand, startling at John’s careful and cautious posture. Hands out, palms up, like he was calming a wild animal. Then again, with the way his heart was pounding right now, maybe John was.

“Sorry,” John said gently. “I… Look. Sherlock. I want to…” He pressed his lips into a firm line. “I can, I need to explain. But… I don’t know-This is-I’m not really…” He grumbled something under his breath and managed to catch himself before he rubbed a palm across his face. “The only way I know how to do this is like ripping off a band aid,” he said finally.

Quick, sharp, and not entirely pain free. Sherlock found himself nodding slowly.

That complex expression was back. Bracing for impact. Like someone was about to hit him, and he was waiting for it. Expecting it. It didn’t do much to allay Sherlock’s nerves. “Someone drugged you. And,” he sighed and closed his eyes, shaking his head as if chastising himself. “And I wasn’t quick enough. And… Twice. I… Let you down twice. He wanted something from me, and he used you. And it was my fault.”

Sherlock blinked. That didn’t quite line up with what he could remember. Drugged, yes. The champagne. It tasted rotten… Because it was drugged. And John had told him not to. And then… He shook his head slowly. “But you…” He pressed firmly at the crease between his brows. It was small solace that the headache wasn’t from alcohol. “No,” he fixed John with a glare. “You were tied to a chair. You were. I didn’t imagine that. That… That happened.”

John gave a cautious nod in agreement. “So were you.”

He swallowed. Yeah. Ok. “But I… You got us out of there.”

John gave another nod.

“How-whu… Who was it? Why? What did he… I don’t underst-Why?”

Uncertain. It was the first time Sherlock could ever describe John Watson as looking uncertain. His posture, his expression, the way he was holding his hands in his lap, his shoulders curved in, his eyes downcast. It looked wrong. He sighed. “I have… There are some things, a-a lot of things that I need to explain.” He gave Sherlock a hesitant glance. “And I will. I’ll… I’ll answer whatever I can. But, Sherlock, I need to ask you something. This is important. And if it is what I think it is, I’ve really, really fucked up.” He winced, took a breath, and collected himself, giving Sherlock a level stare. “Who is your brother?”

“My brother? What does…” _You know who his brother is…_ “Mycroft,” he hissed. Of course this had to do with Mycroft. Mycroft and his infernal meddling. His inability to leave off. His ridiculous demands and officious, impertinent, prurient, nosy interference.

“Yes?”

A great number of things happened simultaneously, and given what he was reluctant to admit was a rather delicate mental state, Sherlock had trouble sorting through the sequence and sheer volume of activity for what could only have been two or three seconds. And instead, he found himself peering around John’s hip at his brother. His brother?! Who had managed to all but materialize in the entry to John’s sitting room. And John, apparently, didn’t appreciate the lack of notice, given the loaded and primed handgun he was currently leveling at Mycroft with deadly calm. It did not, however, escape his notice that John had put himself directly between Sherlock and the perceived intruder. And if that made Sherlock feel just the littlest bit better about Mycroft’s intrusion, then he’d promptly deny it. But it secretly pleased him. Mycroft’s presence did not.

“Who are you and how the fuck did you get in here?” John asked lowly, shifting almost imperceptibly to steady himself.

Good and pragmatic questions there. But also, where on earth had John been hiding that gun? And why was it so incredibly sexy? No, more importantly, what was the likelihood of him actually using it? All would have been reasonable things to ask. Instead, Sherlock spat a rude, “What are you doing here?”

Mycroft lifted his umbrella and pretended to examine the tip with feigned indifference. “Simply concerned, brother mine.”

“Brother?” John growled under his breath. “Sherlock?”

“Is the gun truly necessary, Doctor Watson?”

“Oh, piss off, Mycroft!” Sherlock snapped.

Mycroft sighed extravagantly. “So hostile, Sherlock.”

“Mycroft?” John adjusted his grip on the pistol and Sherlock could practically see him sorting through the information. “M-Mycroft Holmes?” Mycroft’s flicker of a smug smile and miniscule head tilt had Sherlock rolling his eyes. But John let out an indignant huff and swore quietly, “Sonuvabitch.” Very slowly and incredibly reluctantly, John clicked the safety back on and lowered the gun. Sherlock didn’t miss the fact that John didn’t tuck the gun away.

“I take it you’re familiar with my name.”

John’s left hand balled in and out of a fist. “In a manner of speaking.”

“And yet, I find myself curious as to why you’d be increasingly familiar with my little brother.”

John’s head canted slowly to the side as a smile pulled at the corner of his mouth. It wasn’t a pleasant smile, it wasn’t coy, it wasn’t mischievous or pleased or any of the other versions of merriment to which Sherlock had been privilege. It was dark, dangerous, violent, and it made Sherlock swallow heavily. “If I thought the name Holmes was familiar, you’ll have to forgive me for thinking that Mycroft Holmes wouldn’t allow a hit to go out on his brother.” John’s voice was even, cold, measured.

Hit? What hit?!

Mycroft hummed indifferently. “Is that all you have to say for yourself, then?”

John’s smile grew. “I’m upgrading my security?”

Mycroft narrowed his eyes. “If I had doubts regarding the robustness of your security, do you actually believe I’d have put off this meeting to mid-morning?”

Sherlock groaned. “You couldn’t have put it off indefinitely?”

John wrinkled his nose. “Yeah, I’d still sleep better with new locks.”

“How are you sleeping these days, Captain?” Mycroft asked pleasantly.

The false humor left John’s face. “I think that’s none of your fucking business.

Sherlock frowned as he watched the exchange. It was unsettling, unnerving, disconcerting, perplexing, distressing, vexing. It was not what he expected or wanted. He wanted Mycroft gone. And he wanted his John back. John, John. The John Watson that was fun. And provocative. And suggestive. And fond. And, and risqué. And fascinating. And… Exciting… Dangerous… He’d always been dangerous, hadn’t he?

“Sherlock is always my business,” Mycroft tapped the tip of the umbrella on the floor for emphasis.

“Mycroft!” Sherlock barked. He was promptly ignored.

“And yet,” John still hadn’t moved, his face stony and his eyes fixed on Mycroft. “I can’t help but think that Cyr knew all about him.” Cyr. Cyr? Where had he heard that name? _You are a dead man, Cyr._ Oh. Oh! Oh God.

“Yes, Mr. Pagnani. I’ve never been fond.”

For the first time in the conversation, John moved uneasily, his hand shifting around the grip of the gun as if to reassure himself that it was there. “Yeah. Well. He won’t be a problem.”

“So I’ve heard.” Mycroft gave him a long look. “Pity.”

“Not really,” John said ruthlessly.

“Shame about Istanbul.” The corner of Mycroft’s mouth tilted. “And Berlin. One might think it was becoming a trend for you.” Sherlock watched with rapt attention at the way his brother puffed out his chest, and tilted his chin. It was a display. A show of political clout and power of back corridor handshakes and bureaucratic privilege. And John Watson didn’t seem the least bit affected. He simply raised a brow.

“I’ve been distracted,” John’s voice went deliberately and oddly flat. And he could have been a foot shorter than Mycroft, but John Watson was a giant. And Sherlock was absolutely fascinated.

“By what?”

“Forsythe, Turner, Collins, Pagnani… Moran.” John’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “How is the surveillance business?”

“How’s the shoulder?” Mycroft asked casually.

John didn’t flinch, but his eyes flashed with rage.

“How’s the diet?!” Sherlock needled.

John’s shoulders drew back to rigid and square attention. “Either this is your business and you deal with it, or it’s not.”

“Quite,” Mycroft flashed a vexed expression Sherlock’s way. “Do call mummy. She’s ever complaining that she hasn’t heard from you.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes and became quite interested in the view out the window.

“Good day, Sherlock,” Mycroft continued as if Sherlock were still pleasant company and Mycroft had been the least bit interested in his contributions to the conversation. He gave a quick nod to John. “Doctor Watson.” Sherlock liked to think that Mycroft slimed his way out of the flat. Slithered. Slinked. Slunk? Skulked. Crept. Lurked. Lumbered. Like a rotund lizard in a three-piece suit.

John didn’t move until the soft ping of an elevator chime sounded from beyond the heavy front door. Then he sighed, dropped his head, his shoulders rolling down and forward as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Fuck’s sake,” he muttered. Sherlock sat up, resting his forearms on his thighs as he watched John all but melt from rigid into a state of fatigue. It was oddly familiar. Reminiscent. After that phone call for Birmingham.

After a moment, John sighed again and straightened, the militant posture back. “You didn’t tell me that your brother was Mycroft Holmes,” he said quietly. There was no anger in his voice, just resignation. Then he strode to the door and slid the two deadbolts in place and punched something into the digital wall panel. “Fucking hell, I’ll need to get Murray up here to patch the system.”

“John?” Sherlock asked quietly.

He swept past him and into the bedroom. There may have been a cupboard or drawer that was opened and closed briskly.

“John?”

Then John was back out in the sitting room. He ran his left hand through his hair and glanced down at the pistol, still clenched firmly in his right, and huffed a small self-castigation, popped the clip, emptied the bullet from the slide, and dumped all three pieces on the coffee table.

Sherlock watched him carefully. It was as though he’d disarmed, literally and figuratively. And now John Watson was standing in the middle of his sitting room, in bare feet and pajamas, looking small, and soft, and like a little kid that had come out the wrong end of a fight with the playground bully. “John?”

He looked up, momentarily surprised to see Sherlock still there. Then he flashed a wry smile. “Hey. Sorry. Hi.” And he sighed and tilted his head. “God, I’m sorry. Give me a minute to change and I’ll bring you home, yeah?”

“Home?” Sherlock furrowed his brow.

“I’m not letting you stay here. Not until I figure out how your brother broke in.” John chewed on his lower lip and frowned at the door. “Do you trust me, Sherlock?” he asked faintly.

“Of course.” What kind of question was that?

“Idiot,” John sighed.

“Mycroft wouldn’t have come and gone so peaceably if I couldn’t rely on you,” Sherlock said frankly.

“Peaceably.” A forlorn looking half-smile flickered across John’s face and he gave a small nod. “Yeah. Right. You’re right.” He took a deep breath and held it, nodding to himself before blowing it out slowly. “Right. One minute, and I’ll bring you home.” Then he disappeared back into the bedroom and the door closed behind him.

 

~o~

 

It was a fairly quick trip to Baker Street. If he was being honest with himself, Sherlock couldn’t be sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Riding on a motorcycle behind John Watson with his arms wrapped securely around John’s hips was a good thing. Doing so with the helmet that John insisted on, the noise, and current state of London’s roads were bad things. And doing so in borrowed pajamas made of thin cotton that left very little to the imagination in light of the vibrations was a revealing thing. But John was either oblivious or too polite to mention the unsteadiness of Sherlock’s gait as he mounted the stairs. Motorcycles… Huh…

John locked the front door in their wake and overtook Sherlock on the stairs, pushing into the flat and stalking through each room. Careful. Cautious. Wary. Vigilant. Unnecessary. “John,” he caught John’s elbow as he was locking the second entrance to the second floor.

“Who lives downstairs?”

Sherlock raised a brow. “On the ground floor?”

“Yes.” John paced back into the sitting room and drew the curtains. “Who lives on the ground floor?”

“My landlady?” It shouldn’t have sounded like a question. He was fond of Mrs. Hudson. She was sweet, and mild, and independent, and discrete. She was a supporter of the arts, and she knew of Sherlock’s current literary endeavors, and she didn’t mind. “Martha Hudson.”

“Hudson…” John squinted at an imaginary spot on the wall.

“Oh stop,” Sherlock huffed and flopped on the couch. Ill advised. His head wasn’t ready for that kind of movement and he flinched. “She’s harmless. And she’s off visiting her sister for the rest of the month.”

John gave a small nod. “Upstairs?”

“Just a spare room.”

“Basement?”

“Empty. And has been for ages. You’re being paranoid.”

“It’s not paranoia if you’re right,” John scoffed, but some of the tension left his shoulders. He tucked his lower lip between his teeth and glanced around again.

“John, if you’re so unsure of the security of my flat, why bother coming here at all?”

“Because of your brother,” he frowned.

Sherlock groaned and rolled his eyes. “Mycroft.”

John shook his head. “Look. My flat was supposed to be… I mean, I know there’s surveillance… I knew it was he-I…” His face twisted in frustration. “It’s safe here. Provided you remember to lock the doors. And pretend you care at all about security.”

“And stop bringing strange men home with me after I’ve just met them?” Sherlock offered.

He crossed his arms, but the severity was lost in the smirk that crept across John’s face. “That too.” John tilted his head. “Have you been doing much of that lately?”

“Just the once,” Sherlock grinned.

John snorted and smiled down at his shoes. “Right. Ok. I’m going to pop out for some food.” He held up a hand cutting off the objection from Sherlock before it could start. “I’ll be back in thirty minutes. You need to eat something. Trust me. It’ll… Help shift the last of the drugs from your system. Take a shower, grab some clean clothes. I’ll redress anything that needs it after and I’ll be back before you know it.”

Sherlock stuck out his lower lip. “What if I need help in the shower.” It was a bit on the coy side for him, too blushing maiden for his normal discourse. But it was worth it for the salacious grin he got in return.

“Nothing I could help you with in the shower would result in you being clean, Sherlock.”

He blushed instantly.

“Right. Keys.” John stuck out a hand and waited patiently for Sherlock to furnish them. “Half an hour. Lock the doors after me. And stay away from the windows. Yeah?”

“Alright,” he nodded. Simple enough instructions, if not a bit overzealous.

“And don’t let anyone in.”

“Yes, sir,” he saluted.

John rolled his eyes. “Git.” He paused at the door and gave what was likely a reassuring nod. “Thirty minutes.”

Sherlock shooed him out the door and made loud work of the deadbolt. Specifically so John would hear it. He listened for the telltale rattle of the knob and small hum of approval before John was down the stairs. The front door opened and closed. And Sherlock was alone in his flat. Good. Finally. Yes. He took a deep breath. He needed to think.

Thinking. Contemplating. Deliberating. Reasoning. Pondering. He shed the strange clothes and stepped under the scalding spray of his shower. Speculating. Analyzing. Ruminating. Evaluating. Stewing, he realized as the water went cold. He dressed himself on autopilot. Brooding. Reflecting. Imagining. Thinking… It was giving him a headache. He glared at the bruising that wrapped around his wrists and huffed in frustration. How was he supposed to think when the majority of the night was a gaping void? He buried his fingers in his hair and dropped onto his couch with a whine. Muddled. Jumbled. Disordered. And chaotic and addled and scrambled and fucking sore.

He was still holding his head in his hands when John slipped back into the flat, the strong smell of fish and chips catching his attention before the added person did. “Hey. Feeling any better?”

Sherlock grumbled and freed one hand to gesture aimlessly.

“Do you think you could stomach some coffee? The caffeine might help with the headache.” John was already plating the fried food in the kitchen when Sherlock bothered to look up.

The calm was somehow grating against his inner turmoil. “Have experience with that, do you?” It came out sharper, more cutting than he’d intended.

John glanced up and cocked a brow. “Yes.”

The sound of irritation faded as he swiped across his cheek with the back of his hand.

It came away wet.

Sherlock examined the bright crimson stain with a detached curiosity. The black and blue of the bruises with a splash of red. He blinked as his vision blurred. Red and black and blue. He blinked again. It wasn’t that his eyes were fuzzy, his hands were moving. Trembling. Shaking. “Why?”

“Are you bleeding?”

“It doesn’t make sense.”

“Sherlock? Do you have a first aid kit?”

“Why?”

“Sherlock?” The hand on his shoulder made him jump, snapping his head up too quickly and his vision swam again. “Hey,” John’s palm cupped his cheek as the other hand carefully dabbed at whatever was bleeding. “Look at me, Sherlock.” John was patient, steady, gentle as he waited. “Still with me?”

“You really are a doctor?” Later he’d wonder where that question had come from. Later… He was too tired to bother now.

John flinched even as he nodded. “I am.” Cool cream was spread over the crest of his cheek. “Here,” warm fingers tilted his chin and Sherlock winced at the sting from the side of his neck.

“He hit you,” Sherlock whispered. He remembered that. Vividly. John taking a blow… to… to distract from Sherlock.

The corner of John’s mouth twitched. “You should see the other guy.”

He grabbed John’s wrist and looked. He really looked. He hadn’t looked at him yet. Hadn’t bothered. Hadn’t been… keen. Hadn’t been brave enough really. If he’d been paying attention, he would have noticed that John had been hit a number of times. That he could see. And the bruising around his wrists was deep and angry, perhaps more than the finger sized marks heading up his forearms. And he was sitting stiffly. Ribs? Back? Abdomen? How much of it? “You killed him.”

John’s mouth tightened into a slim line. “Sherlock…”

“You said… You said that…”

John gingerly removed Sherlock’s hand from his arm and stood from his perch on the coffee table. “I… I should go.” He looked pale. Why did he look so pale?

“Don’t.”

John furrowed his brow as he shot a cautious glare Sherlock’s direction. Cautious? Guarded? Wary. Unsure. John was unsure. Then he was running a rough hand through his hair. “Sherlock, this isn’t… You… You shouldn’t…” He clamped a hand over his mouth as if to physically stop the words.

“John.” It didn’t make sense. None of it. And being left alone. Left to wade through the quagmire of foggy fragmented memories was unthinkable.

John looked pained. Physically pained.

“Please.”

“Sherlock…”

“Stay.”

“Your brother will kill me.”

“Please, John.”

He could pinpoint the moment John gave in. The exact second that opted to ignore his better judgment in favor of Sherlock’s request. And for a brief minute, Sherlock wondered how many times John had already done that. But he sighed and swallowed heavily. “You’ll eat something,” he said sternly.

Sherlock nodded.

“And… bed - sleep. You need to sleep.”

Sherlock nodded again.

“Just sleep. I mean it, Sherlock. I’m not being coy.”

He huffed out a laugh at the thought. “Yes, Doctor.”

Fond exasperation flashed across John’s face before he could hide it, and Sherlock knew he’d won. And if that meant eating fish and chips, drinking an extra glass of water, tolerating arnica cream on his wrists, it was worth it for the warmth of John in the bed next to him. It was worth it for the steady and comforting sound of his heartbeat beneath Sherlock’s ear. And it quieted the raging void long enough for Sherlock to actually fall asleep.


End file.
